Third, our purchases of long-term securities are boosting economic activity and, in the process, increasing government tax receipts relative to what they would have been in the absence of such purchases.6 All in all, although we have now taken more interest rate risk onto our  5  The mechanism for this effect seems to work, in part, through the habitat preference of investors for long- and short-term debt.
The Indian middle class is also expected to expand by more than 10 times from its current size of 50 million to 583 million people in next 18 years. Given this rise in per capita income, swelling middle class and rapid urbanization, it is estimated that additional 45 million housing units would be required by the year 2012.