Reintegrating India With the World Economy

After nearly five decades of insulation from world markets, state controls, and slow growth, India embarked in 1991 on a process of liberalization of controls and progressive integration with the global economy in an effort to put its economy on a path of rapid and sustained growth. Despite major changes in the government since then, the thrust of reforms has been maintained. According to the World Bank, only 19 out of 137 countries had more rapid growth than India's at over six percent per year in the 1990s.

In this study, Professors Srinivasan and Tendulkar analyze the economics and politics of India's recent and growing integration with the world economy. They argue that this process has to be nurtured and accelerated if India is to eradicate its poverty and take its rightful place in the global economic system. The topics covered include historical roots and the political economy of India's late integration; domestic and external constraints on integration; external capital inflows including foreign direct investment; and India's emerging comparative adva

T.N. Srinivasan, visiting fellow, is the Samuel C. Park, Jr. Professor of Economics and former chairman of the department of economics at Yale University, where he has taught since 1980. He was a special adviser to the Development Research Center at the World Bank from 1977 to 1980 and has taught at numerous academic institutions over the past four decades, including MIT, Standford University, and the Indian Statistical Institute. He has authored a prolific collection of books and articles on econometrics, world trade, and developing-country economics. He is a visiting fellow at the Center for Research on Economic Development and Policy Reform, Stanford University; fellow at the Econometric Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Philosophical Society; and a foreign associate of the US-based National Academy of Sciences Suresh D. Tendulkar, visiting fellow, is professor of economics at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India, where he is also executive director of the Center for Development Economics. He was head of the department of economics (1986-89) and director of the school (1995-98). Before joining the Delhi School, he taught at the Delhi Center of the Indian Statistical Institute (1968-78). He has written extensively on Indian development issues and policies, including those on liberalization and globalization. He has been closely associated with the Indian Statistical System, including the National Sample Survey Organization and the Advisory Committee on National Accounts of which he is currently the chairperson. He was also part-time member of the National Statistical Commission (2000-01), the first Disinvestment Commission (1996-99), and the Fifth Central Pay Commission (1994-97) appointed by the government of India