Economic Development in India

8 Key excerpts on "Economic Development in India"

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  Understanding World Regional Geography

  • Erin H. Fouberg, William G. Moseley(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Geographers who study development generally avoid narrowly defining development as economic growth. Instead, they focus on how economies change over time, the implications of these changes for human well-being, and the connections between development in one place and another. This broad conception of development in geography encompasses a lot of different perspectives within the discipline. This section of the chapter examines ideas about development within geography and how ideas have changed over time. Development as Modernization After World War II, colonies in Asia and Africa gained indepen- dence, and the number of states in the world quickly grew. Scholars in geography and other disciplines, in an attempt to advise newly independent countries about how to develop, sought to explain why some countries developed economically while others did not. Scholars looked for steps or stages that the newly independent countries could follow. This group of theories, often collectively referred to under the umbrella term modernization, suggested that the European industrial econ- omy was the ideal or pinnacle stage of development. These theorists argued that with the right combination of capital, know-how, and attitude, economic growth would pro- ceed down a certain path already forged by the wealthy coun- tries of the world. They posited that countries would make a transition from traditional to modern states. While these theories were most popular in economics, they influenced thinking in geography and other disciplines as well. FIGURE 3.6 Rostow’s ladder of development. One way to represent Rostow’s modernization theory is as a ladder of development, with each rung representing one of his five stages: (1) Traditional or preindustrial, (2) preconditions for take-off, (3) take-off into self-sustaining growth, (4) drive to maturity, and (5) the age of mass consumption.

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  Development Management of Transforming Economies

  Theories, Approaches and Models for Overall Development

  • Fabiana Sciarelli, Azzurra Rinaldi(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  4 When we talk about development, we refer to an economic growth process that occurs alongside a transformation of the society that could ultimately increase the welfare of the population. Countries that are at a developing stage face a transition that leads them from a condition of social and economic underdevelopment to a higher level of welfare and a better employment of productive capacities. In giving a more thorough definition, we can say that development represents an overall variation of economic, social and cultural influences that coincide with the income growth per capita. Obviously, this poses an issue about the definition. While it may be easy to identify an indicator for economic growth, which can be easily synthesized through the GDP, what is far more demanding is the study of an all-embracing indicator for a more structured outlook, including the wealth of the national popula- tion for instance. For this reason, the concept of development needs to be defined by its multidimensional capacity and by covering the different aspects that compose it. 1 Economic Development By identifying the factors the growth theories are based on, we can also iso- late the principal development factors, for example physical capital, tech- nical progress, the demographic factor, human capital and institutions. In economic theory, the physical capital represents the machinery used in the different phases of the production process. Several theories examine thoroughly the relationship that unequivocally connects the accumulation of physical capital with the economic growth of a country. An increase of physical capital on a national level reflects an increment of investments in new productive activities by domestic enterprises. If investments increase then the productive capacity of the country will also improve. In order to use the new machinery appropriately enterprises need to employ new workers, thereby providing an income to people who until then had none to speak of.

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  Regional information and regional planning

  • Antoni Kuklinski(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  Balanced regional growth emerges eventually from a whole series of connected developments, many of which are of a long-term character. Over the short period, advance towards goal will frequently seem small and incomplete. This is true for individual regions and, equally, for the national economy as a whole. Whatever the present short-comings, the aim must be that over a reasonable period all regions in the country should realise their potential for economic development and should attain levels of living not far removed from those of the nation as a whole.' Thus, we can see that the thinking on a sort of integrated regional devel-opment activities started only about a decade ago. Now the questions arise, how and to what extent are these statements of intention carried out in fact? Have we got sufficient information so as to have a clear vision of the process and prospects of development in different regions ? India is, of course, a federal republic, so that some of regional distribution of development activities is brought about by a process of adjustment between central government policy and individual State persuasion or pressure. But the information that is available in and supplied by different 302 Manindra Nath Pal States or regions to prepare national aggregate targets by sectors does not, in itself, enable a decision to be made on the number of projects that should be undertaken in different localities. Of course, a few activities which satisfy only a local demand are built from the available local infor-mation. But, in general, the number of public sector projects are selected on the limited information of economic sizing of projects, their location and the availability of resources in the country, as estimated for a Five Year Plan. Adequate analysis on the choice of location is rarely made, though on occasions, a study of transportation costs involved in building, say, a few central plants influences the selection of projects.

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  Visualizing Human Geography

  At Home in a Diverse World

  • Alyson L. Greiner(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  11 CHAPTER OUTLINE What Is Development? 296 • Economic Indicators • Sociodemographic Indicators • Environmental Indicators • Development and Gender-Related Indexes • Environment and Development ■ Where Geographers Click: Human Development Reports Development and Income Inequality 307 • The Gap between the Rich and the Poor • Factors Affecting Income Distribution • Globalization and Income Distribution Development Theory 312 • The Classical Model of Development • Dependency Theory • World-SystemTheory • The Neoliberal Model of Development • Alternative Approaches to Development ■ What a Geographer Sees: Poverty Mapping Geographies of Development BHUTAN’S QUEST FOR GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS I magine your own Shangri-la—that is, an idyllic place. What place on Earth, if any, comes closest to matching that? Did the country of Bhutan come to mind? Most likely it did not, although in recent years this small mountainous state nestled between India and China has occasionally been described as a Shangri-la. This designation has less to do with Bhutan’s striving to be a perfect place and more to do with its physical setting and its ideology of development. Until the early 1970s, Bhutan was among the world’s most impoverished countries. Then, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck conceived a development strategy that would balance economic growth with environmental protection, Bhutanese cultural traditions, and democratic governance. He envisioned a path to development that, in his words, would bring “gross national happiness.” Bhutan has since invested heavily in education and health care. In the early 1980s, Bhutan had an adult literacy rate of 23% and an infant mortality rate of 163. Today, adult literacy approaches 60%, and infant mortality has dropped to 47. The accompanying photo shows traditional Bhutanese homes with solar panels.

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  Inclusiveness in India

  A Strategy for Growth and Equality

  • S. Hirashima, H. Oda, Y. Tsujita, S. Hirashima, H. Oda, Y. Tsujita(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  These three observations, taken together, indeed present a most compre- hensive description of the development ‘pattern’ of the Indian economy, seen from the perspective of either structural change or its distributive outcomes. The first observation clearly indicates how, after it had ensured a steady supply of food for the urban workers, the rural economy was made to remain insulated from its urban counterpart. In the face of much higher growth rates of the urban economy, this insulation only meant further dualization of the Indian economy, which was already a dual one to start with. This, in a sense, is a structural ‘retrogression’. This insulation would not have mattered much if the insulated subsistence economy was becoming steadily smaller. But, as the second observation indicates, this was certainly not the case. With its low productivity, the rural economy had to support a large and growing population, thereby allowing an acute problem of distribution – both within rural economy and between rural and urban areas – the regional disparities being the reflection of the same phenomena. Finally, the third observation underlines that the growth of agricultural/rural economy is not merely an issue of inequality and poverty; it is also a critical condition for aggregate economic growth per se through its immediate implication for sustained domestic demand. Along with this agricultural growth pattern, the economy has also witnessed geographical distribution of industrial investment favouring the states that already had a sizeable industrial sector for historical reasons. The resulting regional economic disparities can be best expressed Prabhat P. Ghosh 279 when per capita SDP (state domestic product) of different states are expressed as percentages of per capita GDP (gross domestic product) at national level (Das Gupta, 2007) for different years. Two conclusions easily emerge from the comparison of these income figures.

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  The Rise of China and India

  Impacts, Prospects and Implications

  • A. Santos-Paulino, G. Wan, A. Santos-Paulino, G. Wan(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  12 Human capital The role of human capital in economic growth is highlighted in the new growth theory (Benhabib and Spiegel 1994). The measurement of human capital stock is, however, difficult and controversial. 13 This chapter simply employs regional literacy ratios as an indicator of the level of human capital development among the regions in China and India. Urbanization Preliminary analysis in the preceding section provides clear evidence about the relationship between the level of income and the degree of urbanization in both China and India. Thus, a variable reflecting the progress of urbani- zation is included in Equation (4) so that the contribution of urbanization to regional disparity is analysed. Industrialization Regional disparity could be driven by structural differences between the regional economies in each country. More industrialized regions are expected to be more developed and hence have higher per capita income. For exam- ple, Bhattacharya and Sakthivel (2004) find that India’s more industrialized states grew much faster than the less industrialized states during the reform period. To examine the effect of economic structure on regional disparity, the share of the manufacturing sector in GRP is employed as a proxy of the level of industrialization in the empirical models. International trade Openness to trade and investment is expected to play an important role in economic development. 14 This is confirmed by the recent development experience of both China and India. The two economies, in particular Regional Development in China and India 181 China, have benefited substantially from foreign investment and access to foreign markets through exports and imports. While regional trade figures are not available in India, the shares of the value of exports over GRP for the Chinese regions are included as a control variable.

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  Population Growth and Economic Development

  • Ansley Johnson Coale, Edgar M. Hoover(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  It was for reasons of this character that we began our analysis of the Indian economy and its prospects with the agricul- tural sector, in the two preceding chapters. Implicit in this approach was the idea that very substantial progress in that most backward part of the economy was a prerequisite to successful development of the Indian economy as a whole, and that if agriculture was not to be a drag upon overall progress some quite serious obstacles (in- cluding among others the small area of land per capita and the initial lack of interest in improved techniques) would have to be overcome or circumvented. Our examination of the prospects of agriculture, considering that sector by itself, led on the whole to hopeful findings. Subject to some important contingencies mentioned in previous chapters, FACTORS IN INDIAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT we feel justified in proceeding to an examination of the rest of the economy on the assumption that the overall output of agriculture can be approximately doubled in the course of the next two or three decades, and that manpower availability (in a quantitative sense) will not limit agriculture's growth even if the bulk of the increment in the labor force seeks nonfarm employment. Our task in this chapter is to see whether the course of develop- ment we have envisaged in the agricultural sector is Ukely to exercise any important constraints upon development in the rest of the economy, or vice versa, in the course of the next two or three decades. A. Characteristic Developmental Behavior: Agricultural and Overall Growth The process of economic development characteristically involves an increase in the proportion of the total national product origi- nating outside agriculture. As per capita output rises, the output of agriculture rises less than in proportion to total national output; while the output of industry, and the nonagricultural part of the economy generally, rises faster than overall output.

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  Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 1992

  Recent Economic and Social Development

  • United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(Author)
  • 1992(Publication Date)
  • United Nations Publications

    (Publisher)

  5 Chalongphob Sussangkarn, “To-wards balanced development: sectoral, spatial and other dimensions”, paper presented at The 1992 Year-End Con-ference on Thailand’s Economic Struc-ture: Towards Balanced Development, 12-13 December 1992, Chon Buri, Thailand. 6 Ashok Parikh and C.H. Shah, “Relationship between poverty and economic development: a quantitative analysis”, Economic Bulletin for Asia and the Pacific (United Nations publi-cation, Sales No. E.84.II.F.16). count of the global environmental issues and concluded with the adoption of principles and an ac-tion agenda to promote a sustain-able pace and pattern of develop-ment. The concerns, conclusions and recommendations of the Con-ference arose out of the realization that the historical patterns of eco-nomic development had absorbed large quantities of the renewable and non-renewable resources of the world through direct extraction of non-renewable natural resources, and the consumption of renewable resources at an unsustainable rate, and had generated wastes beyond the capacity of the environment to assimilate them. This was re-flected in, among other things, a rapid loss of biodiversity, defor-estation, the creation of holes in the ozone layer in the upper at-mosphere, and the emergence of a serious threat of global warming. There has been growing awareness over the past two decades of the social costs associated with pro-duction processes and consumption patterns that harm the environ-ment. Such harm is sometimes localized and affects not only the people who cause it, but more of-ten it affects people living in other regions, or the prospects for future generations.7 The costs, in terms of resource depletion and the gradual poisoning of the soil, the water and the air, may go even beyond the externalities allowed for in traditional economic or social cost accounting. The costs of economic growth and develop-ment therefore must be accounted for as accurately as possible and balanced against the benefits.

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