Economic Reform in India

Challenges, Prospects, and Lessons

Nicholas C. Hope, Anjini Kochar, Roger Noll, T. N. Srinivasan

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781107020047
• eBook ISBN:
  9781139558396
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Development Economics
• Index: Economics

The essays in this volume are written by leading economists working on the Indian economy. They collectively emphasize the importance of policies and institutions for sustained growth and poverty reduction, stressing that the success of sector-specific policies is vitally dependent on the nature of markets and the functioning of institutions such as those charged with regulating and overseeing critical sectors. Individual contributions assess the role of Indian government policy in key sectors and emphasize the policies required to ensure improvements in these sectors. The first section discusses aspects of the macro economy; the second deals with agriculture and social sectors; the third with jobs and how labor markets function in agriculture, industry and services; and the fourth with infrastructure services, specifically electricity, telecommunications and transport. The essays are drawn from the most influential papers presented in recent years on Indian economic policy at the Stanford Center for International Development.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• The Macro Economy
• 2 Federalism and Economic Development in India: An Assessment
• 3 India and China: Trade and Foreign Investment
• 4 Financial Sector Reforms and Monetary Policy: The Indian Experience
• Institutional Reforms: Agriculture and Education
• 5 Land Reform, Decentralized Governance, and Rural Development in West Bengal
• 6 Market-Driven Agricultural Growth: Contrasting Experiences in Punjab and Rajasthan
• 7 India’s Higher Education Opportunity
• 8 Improving the Quality of Rural Primary Schools: An Evaluation of a Computer-Aided Learning Program in South India
• Employment, Industrial Structure, and Poverty
• 9 The Missing Middle
• 10 Some Aspects of the Trends in Employment and Unemployment in Bihar and Kerala since the 1970s
• 11 Size Matters: Urban Growth and Poverty in India, 1983–2005
• Infrastructure: Electricity and Transportation
• 12 An Assessment of Indian Telecommunications Reform
• 13 Managing Demand-Side Economic and Political Constraints on Electricity Industry Restructuring Processes
• 14 Moving India: The Political Economy of Transport Sector Reform
• Index