Purchasing power took a hit of $1tr due to violence

New Delhi, June 10: Violence cost the Indian economy a whopping $1.19 trillion (over `80 lakh crore) last year in constant purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, which amounts to roughly $595.4 per person, says a report.

The findings are part of the report prepared by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) based on an analysis of 163 countries and territories.

Violence impacted $1,190.51 billion to the Indian economy in 2017, 9 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) or $595.4 (over `40,000) per person.

The economic impact of violence to the global economy was $14.76 trillion in 2017, in PPP terms. This is equivalent to 12.4 per cent of GDP, or $1,988 per person.

The global economic impact of violence is defined as the expenditure and economic effect related to containing, preventing and dealing with the consequences of violence.

The estimates include the direct and indirect cost of violence as well as an economic multiplier.

“The multiplier effect calculates the additional economic activity that would have accrued if the direct costs of violence had been avoided,” the report noted.

As per the report, human beings encounter conflict regularly whether at home, at work, among friends, or on a more systemic level between ethnic, religious or political groups. But the majority of these conflicts do not result in violence.

The fall in peacefulness over the decade was caused by a wide range of factors, including increased terrorist activity, the intensification of conflicts in the West Asia, rising regional tensions in Eastern Europe and northeast Asia, and increasing numbers of refugees and heightened political tensions in Europe and the US, it added. – PTI

For South Asia, the report said strengthening scores on the Political Terror Scale, refugees and internally displaced person and terrorism impact were only partially offset by a deterioration in external conflicts fought after a border dispute with...