Turns out they were a finalist not the winners. The difference is here: http://www.pulitzer.org/page/frequently-asked-questions (no. 23). 3 finalists are chosen by that category jury from the submissions and one winner is picked by the board from that.
Your question prompted me to read further on this. You got my upvote.
Nigeria was in a recession and exited a few months back per [12]. This bbc video tries to answer the question of why the recession happened [13]
The 2017 budget has N7.3 Trillion expenses with N4.94 Trillion revenue (of which oil revenue is N1.99 Trill)and a deficit of N2.3 Trillion. The oil revenue is not near enough. A good portion of their expenses looks to be capital expenditures (infrastructure and security) and debt servicing. "In 2017, debt servicing is projected to increase by 22 percent, which is above the current inflation level, indicating a real increase in the country’s debt burden as the FG plans to increase borrowings. " [0]
The deeper reasons might be the history - civil war, dictatorships, communal violence over decades including an insurgency and concomitant vicious cycle and corruption. Things look to be getting better.
Poverty is huge. [1] mentions 33% as below the poverty line ($1.90/day per [8]). India where I'm from as a comparison has 12.4% per [10]. Huge inflation - 9% in 2015 per [1] but now at 16% per [11]
[2] mentions three causes for poverty in Nigeria - income equality, ethnic conflict and political instability.
Civil war right after independence led to a dictatorship [9]. The oil boom in the 70s increased the govt's (dictatorship's) money but "did little to enhance its political and administrative capacity, but did increase incomes and the number of jobs that the governing elites could distribute to their clients". [6]
Looks like the return to democracy in 1999 (Fourth Nigerian Republic [3]) is when things started to turn for the better with civilian rule. Still with lots of violence [4] and a religious insurgency by Boko Haram at least until Dec 2015 ("technically defeated") [5]. Existing poverty is itself mentioned as as a cause for the rise of Boko Haram and they also made things much, much worse - "roughly 10,000 deaths since 2011 and roughly 2.6 million displaced Nigerians" (and more economic impact) [6]. Corruption seems to be widespread with scams listed till 2015[7].
The 2018 proposed budget tries to reduce the deficit and forecasts a 40% growth of the non-oil revenue (though many of the expenditure items have a similar growth). [14]
> India does have very large middle class population and most of their income is unaccounted.
At least until Nov 2016, wouldn't this income have been cash given that cash transactions accounted for 95+% of transactions[1]? (Percentage by total amount would have been useful too but I couldn't find that stat.) If these were 'unaccounted' then demonetization would have caught that. But only 1% of banned currency wasn't deposited (as of Aug 2017) [2]. The initial estimates given were for about 20% to not show up [3]. That didn't turn out to be the case.
So while I'm sure there is unaccounted income, I'm not sure this is most of the income of a very large middle class.
Very good point but i believe the cash in hand doesn't account for all the money you have.
There are many facets for accountability. And I don't think that any middle class person having more cash in hand while exchanging his cash could potentially prove that his money is accountable because there exist some form of money which he has given to some other person or may be has invested in some business.
My point is by totalling out just the amount of cash maybe 5-10k rupees the income cannot be accounted.
> .. the cash in hand doesn't account for all the money you have.
Yes, but your original point I was addressing wasn't about all the money you have but specifically income.
My point is that income is coming from some transactions and 95% of transactions were cash based pre Nov 2017. And only 1% of cash outstanding was unaccounted for after demonetization.
> My point is by totalling out just the amount of cash maybe 5-10k rupees the income cannot be accounted.
> Much harder to throw money at luxuries when you're saving a lot.
I think this misses the larger point that Indians overall don't have that much money in hand to spend on luxuries.
I believe GNI per capita ppp [1] is the right comparison. (someone please correct if I'm wrong.) For india thats ~ $6K whereas for the US its ~ $57.5K, almost 10 times. (Also while the savings rate is more, the actual amount saved looks greater for the US.)
I think the parent is right, grand parent just proves the point of the article.
Turns out they were a finalist not the winners. The difference is here: http://www.pulitzer.org/page/frequently-asked-questions (no. 23). 3 finalists are chosen by that category jury from the submissions and one winner is picked by the board from that.
Good info though. Thanks.