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The subject of India's rapid growth in the past two decades has become a prominent focus in the public eye. A book that documents this unique and unprecedented surge, and addresses the issues raised by it, is sorely needed. Arvind Panagariya fills that gap with this sweeping, ambitious survey. India: The Emerging Giant comprehensively describes and analyzes India's economic development since its independence, as well as its prospects for the future. The author argues that India's growth experience since its independence is unique among developing countries and can be divided into four periods, each of which is marked by distinctive characteristics: the post-independence period, marked by lib...
By most accounts, China has quickly grown into the second largest economy in the world. In this controversial new book, Subramanian argues that China has already become the most economically dominant country in the world in terms of wealth, trade and finance. Its dominance and eclipsing of US global economic power is more imminent, more broad-based and larger in magnitude than anyone has anticipated. Subramanian compares the economic dominance of China with that of the two previous economic superpowers--the United States and the United Kingdom--and highlights similarities and differences. One corollary is that the fundamentals are strong for the Chinese currency to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency. The final chapter forecasts how the international economic system is likely to evolve as a result of Chinese dominance.
In his new book, Arvind Subramanian presents the following possibilities: What if, contrary to common belief, China's economic dominance is a present-day reality rather than a faraway possibility? What if the renminbi's takeover of the dollar as the world's reserve currency is not decades, but mere years, away? And what if the United States's economic preeminence is not, as many economists and policymakers would like to believe, in its own hands, but China's to determine? Subramanian's analysis is based on a new index of economic dominance grounded in a historical perspective. His examination makes use of real-world examples, comparing China's rise with the past hegemonies of Great Britain a...
On economic policies pursued in Indian economy post 1991 watershed year; articles co-authored with many other writers.
This PIIE Briefing published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics traces the complex economic relationship between India and the rest of the world, focusing on the United States. The various chapters, by leading experts, emphasize the contrast between political ties between Washington and New Delhi, which have steadily improved since the 1980s, culminating in the landmark nuclear agreement in 2005, and economic ties, which have lagged despite intensive negotiations and pledges of cooperation. The current moment of uncertainty and turbulence may not seem to be the time for a new collaborative chapter in this frequently contentious economic relationship. But the authors argue instead that a crisis can compel leaders of both countries to rethink their failed policies and expand, not reduce, their economic cooperation. By examining the record of international economic policies in the world’s two most populous democracies, this volume can illuminate a path forward. There are no illusions in these essays about the costs and obstacles. Their assumption is that learning the lessons of the past can guide the way for progress in the future.
For nearly four years, Arvind Subramanian stood at the centre of economic policymaking in India. Through the communication of big ideas and the publication of accessible Economic Surveys, he gained a reputation as an innovator. Through honest pronouncements that avoided spin, he became a figure of public trust. What does it entail to serve at the helm of the world's fastest-growing economy, where decision-making affects a population of more than a billion people? In Of Counsel: The Challenges of the Modi-Jaitley Economy, Arvind Subramanian provides an inside account of his rollercoaster journey as the chief economic advisor to the Government of India from 2014-18, succeeding Raghuram Rajan a...
This paper furnishes robust evidence that the GATT/WTO has had a powerful and positive impact on trade. The impact has, however, been uneven. GATT/WTO membership for industrial countries has been associated with a large increase in imports estimated at about 40 percent of world trade. The same has not been true for developing country members, although those that joined after the Uruguay Round have benefited from increased imports. Similarly, there have been asymmetric effects among sectors, with WTO membership associated with substantially greater imports in sectors where barriers are low. These results are consistent with the history and design of the institution, which presided over significant trade liberalization by the industrial countries except in sectors such as food and clothing; largely exempted developing countries from the obligations to liberalize under the principle of special and differential treatment; but attempted to redress the latter by imposing greater obligations on developing country members that joined after the Uruguay Round.
This paper explores the causes of India's productivity surge around 1980, more than a decade before serious economic reforms were initiated. Trade liberalization, expansionary demand, a favorable external environment, and improved agricultural performance did not play a role. We find evidence that the trigger may have been an attitudinal shift by the government in the early 1980s that unlike the reforms of the 1990s, was probusiness rather than promarket in character, favoring the interests of existing businesses rather than new entrants or consumers. A relatively small shift elicited a large productivity response, because India was far away from its income-possibility frontier. Registered manufacturing, which had been built up in previous decades, played an important role in determining which states took advantage of the changed environment.
Most countries emerged from the Second World War with capital accounts that were closed to the rest of the world. Since then, a process of capital account opening has occurred, with the result that all developed and many emerging-market countries now have capital accounts that are both de facto and de jure open, while many developing countries also have de facto openness. This study examines this in part by considering some of the first lessons from the current global financial crisis. This crisis may change the terms of the debate on capital account liberalization in a deeper and more lasting way than any of the crises of the past two decades because it may mark a reversal in the secular trend of financial liberalization at the core of the international financial system. The current crisis also raises new questions about the appropriate policy responses to boom-bust dynamics in domestic credit and in international credit flows. Intellectual consistency is needed between the domestic and international dimensions of financial regulation and the policies aimed at dealing with boom-bust dynamics in domestic and international credit.
Some natural resources-oil and minerals in particular-exert a negative and nonlinear impact on growth via their deleterious impact on institutional quality. We show this result to be very robust. The Nigerian experience provides telling confirmation of this aspect of natural resources. Waste and poor institutional quality stemming from oil appear to have been primarily responsible for Nigeria's poor long-run economic performance. We propose a solution for addressing this resource curse which involves directly distributing the oil revenues to the public. Even with all the difficulties that will no doubt plague its actual implementation, our proposal will, at the least, be vastly superior to the status quo. At best, however, it could fundamentally improve the quality of public institutions and, as a result, durably raise long-run growth performance.