Economic growth in India - Pulapre Balakrishnan

It is a measure of the youthfulness of economics as a discipline that two centuries after the appearance of Adam Smith's landmark treatise The Wealth of Nations, an economist has posed the question 'How do economies grow?' This comprehensive study of economic growth in India is intended as a response to this question. As history, it surveys the half century from the end of colonial rule to the present; as prognosis, it focuses on what we may expect in the immediatefuture.
Drawing upon diverse strands of theory, historical perspective, political economy, and econometrics, the book presents an eclectic and original narrative of the Indian growth experience. The main body of the book is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 provides a critical exposition of some prominent theoretical representations of growth and a historical perspective on its drivers. The remaining three chapters provide a fresh analysis of three periods, respectively, 1950-64, 1965-91, and 1991onwards. Presenting a favourable appraisal of the growth record of early independent India and an account of how the advantage was lost, the book argues that it is not just 'more reforms' that stand in the way of sustained double-digit growth rates. The prospects for high long-term growth in Indiaare instead linked with development of agriculture and education, particularly schooling. Further, the author proposes that inclusive growth is not just some optional extra, however desirable, but intrinsic to the prosperity of the country. The possibility of such an outcome, he argues, is tied more to the state's capacity to govern the public institutions once created by it than its command over resources.

Pulapre Balakrishnan is Senior Fellow, Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi; and Visiting Professor, Centre for International Trade and Development, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.