New India

Description

With a GDP that just reached $2.6 trillion, India is poised to become the world's third largest economy in less than a decade. In doing so, it will have moved one step closer to reclaiming its pre-industrial glory when it accounted for one-sixth of the global output and ranked second in economic size. This rapid movement in the absolute size of the economy will be insufficient, however, to bring prosperity to India's vast population. Today, 44% of the country's workforce remains in agriculture and another 42% in small enterprises with fewer than twenty workers. Labor productivity of both sets of workers remains low and they live overwhelmingly on subsistence-level incomes.

In New India: Reclaiming the Lost Glory, Arvind Panagariya outlines a concise strategy to transform India from a primarily rural and agricultural economy to an urban and industrial economy with well-paid jobs for those with limited skills. Panagariya argues that the creation of good jobs requires the emergence of medium and large enterprises in industry and services, especially labor-intensive sectors such as apparel, footwear, and other light manufactures. He explains that India needs policies conducive to the growth of firms from small to medium, medium to large, and large to larger still. Such policies include greater outward orientation; more flexible land, labor, and capital markets; concerted effort to improve the quality of higher education; faster urbanization; and improved governance at all levels.

Written by a preeminent authority on the Indian economy, New India: Reclaiming the Lost Glory provides a data-driven and persuasive roadmap for India to eliminate abject poverty, accelerate economic growth, and return to its historically prominent position in the global economy.

About the author

Arvind Panagariya is Professor of Economics and the Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy at Columbia University. He formerly served as the first Vice Chairman of the NITI Aayog, the government of India in the rank of a cabinet minister; as Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank; and as India's Sherpa for the G20 Summits. Panagariya is the author of over fifteen books including India: The Emerging Giant and Free Trade and Prosperity.

Table of contents

Preface

PART I: A Bright Future Awaits
Chapter 1: Reclaiming the Lost Glory
Chapter 2: From Command and Control to a More Liberal Order: 1950-2018

PART II: Understanding the Challenge of Transformation
Chapter 3: Underemployment in Agriculture
Chapter 4: Underemployment in Industry and Services
Chapter 5: Walking on Two Legs

PART III: The Road to Reforms
Chapter 6: Reforms for Export-led and Manufacturing-fed Growth
Chapter 7: Urbanization: Making Room for Migrant Workers
Chapter 8: Investing Productively: The Securities Market
Chapter 9: Investing Productively: The Banking Sector
Chapter 10: Transforming Higher Education
Chapter 11: Governance
Chapter 12: Nuggets: A Miscellany of Reforms
Chapter 13: In Conclusion: Revisiting the Past, Looking to the Future