Sustaining India's Growth Miracle

The economy of India is growing at a rate of 8 percent per year, and its exports of goods and services have more than doubled in the past three years. Considering these trends, economists, scholars, and political leaders across the globe are beginning to wonder whether India's growth can be sustained.

The contributors to this volume analyze the forces behind India's emerging role as a world economic player and identify the hidden weaknesses that, if unaddressed, may slow the country's growth. Chapters suggest how to transform India's primarily rural population into a gainfully employed modern sector; methods to achieve fiscal sustainability and consolidation; infrastructure bottlenecks, especially in terms of finite energy resources; and, given the country's complex electoral government and global political position, the obstacles toward effecting policy reform.

Sustaining India's Growth Miracle is a valuable resource for practitioners, policymakers, students, and scholars. It tackles issues from political, economic, and academic perspectives, and the concluding chapter, a talk given by the commerce and industry minister of India, discusses the country's position as a world power, outlining several reasons for its success and exploring the difficulties that lie ahead.

Jagdish N. Bhagwati is University Professor at Columbia University and senior fellow in international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has been the economic policy advisor to Arthur Dunkel, director-general of GATT; special advisor on globalization to the UN; and external advisor to the WTO. Professor Bhagwati has written on India for four decades and is widely credited (with his wife, Columbia University professor Padma Desai) with pioneering Indian reforms. He has been awarded several prizes and honorary degrees and has uniquely received six festschrifts.Charles W. Calomiris is the Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia Business School and a professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. He co-directs the Project on Financial Deregulation at the American Enterprise Institute and is a member of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee, is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Professor Calomiris served on the International Financial Institution Advisory Commission, a congressional commission that advised the U.S. government on the reform of the IMF, the World Bank, the regional development banks, and the WTO. His research spans several areas, including banking, corporate finance, financial history, and monetary economics. He received a BA in economics from Yale University in 1979 and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 1985, and serves on several boards of directors and editorial boards.