Economic Slowdown In India

The book provides one of the most detailed and comprehensive reviews of the growth experience of a group of low and middle income countries before and during the global crisis. It then explores their growth prospects after the recovery and how they may be shaped by the new global economic environment.

India has been a growth champion in recent years and has succeeded in taming inflation, the current account deficit and non-performing loans. India's participation in the global economy has risen, with outstanding performances in some services, while the largest diaspora in the world is an asset in developing new markets. India has also lifted many millions of people out of poverty and has made access to housing for all a priority. Ambitious structural reforms -- including better targeted household support, financial inclusion initiatives, the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, the new approach to federalism and the corporate income tax reform -- have played a key role.

The devastating effect of Covid19 on the Indian economy is by now well-known. The growth rate of the economy slumped to a negative figure in the year 2020-21. What is less talked about, however, is the fact that growth slowdown in India had started several years before the pandemic struck. The two questions that naturally arise are: what explains the long economic slowdown and what can be done about it. This book is an in-depth analysis of the economic slowdown in India in recent years and the reasons behind the persistent slowdown in the growth rate of the Indian economy in the 2010s, especially in the latter half of the decade. While discussing both macro- and microeconomic policies, the volume examines how the perspective on economic policy has evolved over time in consonance with experience by investigating major instances of such slowdowns in the past. Three global slowdowns (viz. the Great Depression of 1929, the stagflation induced by the oil crisis of the 1970s and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007) and the industrial deceleration in India in the late 1960s and early 1970s are discussed. The author also probes into the problems of inequality, poverty, inflation in the Indian economy pre- and post- pandemic and policies targeted towards development, manufacturing, and distribution of vaccines. The book further discusses possible economic impacts of the Ukraine War and the long-term problem of global warming. Concise and thoroughly researched, this book will be of interest to beginners, scholars, research students and teachers interested in economics, policy making and development studies.

While this book covers several technical issues which will interest professional economist and policy-makers, it is also wholly accessible to the general reader.

This tract provides an overview of Indian economic development in the last four decades since Independence. It traces the evolution of development strategies since the 1930s, attempts to understand their rationale, their problems and contradictions. It begins with an evaluation of economic performance under planning and goes on to review the range of arguments that seek to explain the constraints on growth. It argues against the rigidities and problems of the earlier system and stresses the need for strong corrective measures to restore the economy. While the tract is emphatic about the need for reforms, it questions the assumptions which underlie the present project of liberalization and reiterates the continued need for planning and state intervention within the framework of reforms.

India. Monograph on the short term inflation crisis, its causes and economic policy recommendations - includes supply and demand factors influencing inflation, such as fiscal policy, monetary policy, price controls, the black market, a shrinking tax base, insufficient agricultural production and industrial production, etc. Statistical tables.

Nearly fifty years after independence, India remains a very poor country. It ranks near the bottom in terms of per capita income, and is similarly placed in the Human Development Index which measures social well-being. Economic growth in India has been less than half that of China or even other countries in Asia. And governments, at the Centre as well as in the states, are close to insolvency. The reason for our spectacular underachievement lies in the continuation of policies which had a certain validity as a response to the colonial experience, but which have long outlived their usefulness. The global economic scene has changed dramatically since they were formulated, and we must respond to the new realities. Bimal Jalan, the well known economist and present Governor of the RBI, in this lucid and well-argued book, makes a case for governments doing what they alone can best do, and less of what they cannot do effectively. 'One of the most lucid and lay-reader-accessible books to have been penned by an Indian economist.' --Outlook 'One cannot but agree with most of the suggestions made by Mr Jalan.' following the reforms process closely.' --Business India 'Jalan marshals a formidable array of facts to convey the general failure of the avowed mission of planning in India and the public sector's abysmal failure in particular.' --The Telegraph