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Innovation · indicator 9

Global Innovation Index rank

Modi ahead

Rahul India

0.746

synthetic 2019

Modi India

0.659

actual 2019

Difference

-12%

vs counterfactual

Placebo rank

2/9

p = 0.22

What this measures

Global Innovation Index rank is how much of national income goes into research and development. A falling number is an improvement.

India stood at 0.706 in 2013, before the two paths separate. By 2019 Modi’s current India had fallen to 0.659, while Rahul’s India — the blend of comparison countries that tracked India before 2014 — reached 0.746.

That leaves Modi’s current India 12% lower than Rahul’s India — better than where comparable economies ended up. Modi’s current India ranks 2/9 against placebo countries (p = 0.222) — within the range chance produces, so the gap is not distinguishable from noise.

Both paths, 1984–2019

Weights fitted on 2003-2013 only; the counterfactual is projected across 2014-2019.

Modi India · actualRahul India · syntheticModi ahead

Divergence

Modi India minus Rahul India, in % of GDP.

What Rahul’s India is made of

Donor weights, solved on pre-2014 data. 8 countries in the pool; those not listed carry zero weight.

  • South Africa
    81.7%
  • Tunisia
    10.8%
  • China
    7.5%

Method & reliability

Measure
rnd_pct_gdp
Source type
Cross-country proxy
Estimation window
2003-2013
Projection window
2014-2019
Donor pool
8 countries
Pre-2014 fit (RMSPE)
3.5% of pre-period mean
Placebo rank
2/9
Standardised p-value
0.222
BH-adjusted q across tier 1
0.444

The q-value applies a Benjamini–Hochberg correction across all 20 indicators with a counterfactual. We report p as the primary figure because each indicator is treated as a separate question rather than one family of hypotheses — but no result on this site survives q ≤ 0.10, and a reader who prefers the family view should read the p-values accordingly.

GII rank -> R&D spend %GDP

How this was calculated

Nothing here is chosen by hand. The comparison countries are not picked for being like India — they are whatever mix best reproduces India’s own path before 2014 on this particular measure.

  1. 1Describe India before 2014

    India's global innovation index rank is summarised over 2003-2013 — the value at five evenly spaced years starting 2003, plus three background controls averaged across the whole window: GDP per capita, urbanisation and life expectancy.

  2. 2Find the blend that matches it

    Each of the 8 comparison countries is described the same way. An optimiser then searches for the weighted mix of them whose pre-2014 path sits closest to India's. Weights cannot be negative and must sum to 100%, so the result is always a real combination of real countries — never an extrapolation.

  3. 3Check the match is good enough

    The blend misses India's actual pre-2014 path by 3.5% on average. That is close enough to treat the projection as meaningful.

  4. 4Project it forward and compare

    The weights are frozen and applied to 2014-2019, years the optimiser never saw. That projection is Rahul's India. The difference against what actually happened is the gap shown above.

  5. 5Test it against the other countries

    The whole procedure is re-run pretending each comparison country was the one treated in 2014. India's break ranks 2/9 against those placebos, giving p = 0.222 — well within what chance produces, so this gap is not distinguishable from noise.

Why South Africa?

South Africa carries 82% of the weight here — not because it resembles India economically or politically, but because its global innovation index rank moved like India’s did between 2003 and 2013. On 24 of the other 27 indicators on this site it carries no weight at all; where it does appear, the largest is operational airports at 58%. The blend is re-solved from scratch for every indicator, which is why the same country can dominate one estimate and be absent from the next.

3 of 8 comparison countries carry any weight at all. The rest are assigned zero by the optimiser.

The counterfactual is 'India without the 2014 structural break', estimated from comparator countries. It is not a forecast of any individual's policies. Sources: World Bank WDI API (2026-07-13); IRENA via Our World in Data.