India: The Emerging Giant [Hardcover]

Arvind Panagariya (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 2008

India is not only the world's largest and fiercely independent democracy, but also an emerging economic giant. But to date there has been no comprehensive account of India's remarkable growth or the role policy has played in fueling this expansion. India: The Emerging Giant fills this gap, shedding light on one of the most successful experiments in economic development in modern history.

Why did the early promise of the Indian economy not materialize and what led to its eventual turnaround? What policy initiatives have been undertaken in the last twenty years and how do they relate to the upward shift in the growth rate? What must be done to push the growth rate to double-digit levels? To answer these crucial questions, Arvind Panagariya offers a brilliant analysis of India's economy over the last fifty years--from the promising start in the 1950s, to the near debacle of the 1970s (when India came to be regarded as a "basket case"), to the phenomenal about face of the last two decades. The author illuminates the ways that government policies have promoted economic growth (or, in the case of Indira Gandhi's policies, economic stagnation), and offers insightful discussions of such key topics as poverty and inequality, tax reform, telecommunications (perhaps the single most important success story), agriculture and transportation, and the government's role in health, education, and sanitation.

The dramatic change in the fortunes of 1.1 billion people has, not surprisingly, generated tremendous interest in the economy of India. Arvind Panagariya offers the first major account of how this has come about and what more India must do to sustain its rapid growth and alleviate poverty. It will be must reading for everyone interested in modern India, foreign affairs, or the world economy.

An Economist Best Book of 2008.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mr. Panagariya's book is the capstone of a career, a sustained work of scholarship. It demands a lot of its readers, and amply repays the investment. The author's father told him: "Take your time, but write a definite book on India." The son did not disappoint."--The Economist (second review)

"An important book"--The Economist

"It isn't easy to write about the Indian economy if you are a non-resident.... In an earlier generation of economists, Jagdish Bhagwati and T. N. Srivivasan managed this knowledge disadvantage extremely well; and in a subsequent generation, Arvind Panagariya.... This is a book that will be treasured and quoted, like Bhagwati and Desai's in an earlier era. However, is this volume for an economist or a non-economist? The answer is, both. ...a book that needed to be written, by someone with sufficient knowledge and perseverance.... I cannot think of a single volume that is even remotely a substitute for this one."--The Indian Express

"Arvind Panagariya has written probably the best all-around, up-to-date, and accessible book on the Indian economy. It is informed by the analytic apparatus of a leading international trade economist, yet is is packed full of useful real-world detail. It has comprehensive range--but it links the separate elements into a coherent whole. It is a superlative work of applied economics, and it is also sensitive to India's political economy. It has pointed, punchy policy conclusions: Panagariya is not shy about attacking those he thinks have got it wrong on the Indian economy, and he does so with a powerful combination of analytical argument and detailed evidence."--Finance & Development

"If there is one book which has been published in recent times that discusses the Indian economy in all its aspects with such clear-mindedness, surely it is Panagaria's India: The Emerging Giant.... What makes this work so absorbing can be attributed to three factors: one, it is objective, two, it is reader-friendly, in the sense [that] it is largely free of technical jargon and is easily understood by the layman, and three, it is well-researched.... What is encouraging about this work is that it is highly optimistic about India's economic future"--M. V. Kamath, The Free Press

"A seminal [work] and a must for all serious students of India's economic history and the rapid changes that the country is going through.... An extremely useful reference book for any person who needs to be aware of the political economy of India"--Financial Express

"Compulsory reading for those interested in India's transformation."--Hindustan Times

"Arvind Panagariya has produced a truly monumental, wide-ranging and penetrating work on the Indian economy. A tour de horizon and a tour de force--it will establish him as the most insightful economist writing on India today."--Jagdish Bhagwati, University Professor, Economics and Law, Columbia University

"This is now the definitive book on the Indian economy. With exhaustive research, careful analysis, and good judgment, Arvind Panagariya has detailed the vast and varied story of India's reforms. It puts to rest certain myths and settles debates with balance and fairness. The starting point for serious analysis of the subject."--Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Newsweek International

"India's astonishing economic surge is one of the most momentous events of our time. Arvind Panagariya has given us what we have lacked up to now: a detailed, comprehensive and superbly clear survey of this breakthrough, how it came about, and where it might lead. Instantly indispensable for students of development, the book deserves a much wider readership than that. It will fascinate anybody interested in the new global economy."--Clive Crook, Chief Washington Commentator and Associate Editor, Financial Times and Senior Editor, The Atlantic Monthly

"India: The Emerging Giant provides a comprehensive and panoramic exposition of the twist and turns in India's economic policy over the last several decades. As Arvind Panagariya has so convincingly argued, open policies and rapid economic growth is the best antidote for poverty reduction. This scholarly yet readable book is the best riposte to those who have any doubts of the validity of Indian reforms."--Nandan Nilekani, Co-Chairman, Infosys Technologies Limited

"Panagariya not only is a distinguished professor of economics at Columbia University, but he has also been a chief economist at the Asian Development Bank and served at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.... He is able to tell the story of India's economic growth by highlighting different phases of its economic policy...a massive research study that will command the respect of scholars"--Foreign Affairs

"If there is one book which has been published in recent times that discusses the Indian economy in all its aspects with such clear-mindedness, surely it is Panagaria's India: The Emerging Giant.... What makes this work so absorbing can be attributed to three factors: one, it is objective, two, it is reader-friendly, in the sense [that] it is largely free of technical jargon and is easily understood by the layman, and three, it is well-researched.... What is encouraging about this work is that it is highly optimistic about India's economic future"--M. V. Kamath, The Free Press

"It isn't easy to write about the Indian economy if you are a non-resident.... In an earlier generation of economists, Jagdish Bhagwati and T. N. Srivivasan managed this knowledge disadvantage extremely well; an in a subsequent generation, Arvind Panagariya.... This is a book that will be treasured and quoted, like Bhagwati and Desai's in an earlier era. However, is this volume for an economist or a non-economist? The answer is, both. ...a book that needed to be written, by someone with sufficient knowledge and perseverance.... I cannot think of a single volume that is even remotely a substitute for this one."--The Indian Express

"A seminal [work] and a must for all serious students of India's economic history and the rapid changes that the country is going through.... An extremely useful reference book for any person who needs to be aware of the political economy of India"--Financial Express

"Compulsory reading for those interested in India's transformation."--Hindustan Times

"Arvind Panagariya has produced a truly monumental, wide-ranging and penetrating work on the Indian economy. A tour de horizon and a tour de force--it will establish him as the most insightful economist writing on India today."--Jagdish Bhagwati, University Professor, Economics and Law, Columbia University

"Arvind Panagriya's book represents an important contribution to the voluminous literature on India's economy... Panagariya's lifetime of research on the subject makes him well placed to tell this story. The depth of this knowledge is certainly evident throughout this book... I have not come across a single similar source with the level of detail and historical information on the history of...policy changes in the various sectors that he tackles."-Arjun Jayadev, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Boston

About the Author

Arvind Panagariya is Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy and Professor of Economics in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. A leading authority on the economy of India, he has been the Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank and has also worked for the World Bank, IMF, WTO and UNCTAD.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195315030
• ISBN-13: 978-0195315035
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #693,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding analysis of issues grappling an emerging economy, September 29, 2008

By 

Rupa Duttagupta - See all my reviews

This review is from: India: The Emerging Giant (Hardcover)

This book is a must read for anybody wishing to dig deeper into India's recent impressive economic performance and undeniable presence in the world. It offers an outstanding analysis of post independent India's growth experience in the form of four distinct phases--relating it meticulously to the content and pace of economic reforms--and convincingly addresses key issues such as why did growth stall in post independent India, and why it took off again, how the process was affected by the country's complex political process, and where are the promises and challenges for the future. It also provides a very thorough account of the role of government in the macro and structural reform process. Finally, it raises several timely questions in light of the recent economic and financial strains confronting the world economy: is the government's fiscal policy sustainable or would it result in runaway inflation and/or economic crises? How urgent is the need for fiscal consolidation? What is the state of the financial system and does it need to be fixed? What are the risks of a balance of payments crisis--akin to that experienced in the early 1990s?

Notwithstanding its very comprehensive analysis, the book reaches out to a wide spectrum of readers--its careful data analysis with a rich dose of charts and tables will definitely appeal the thorough academician who expects statements to be backed by adequate statistics; at the same time, the issues are close to the heart of any pragmatic policymaker, not just in India but in other emerging market economy. While this is not the only book on India I have read, it is among the very few that I will keep going back to for the timeless nature of its analysis.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review: India: The Emerging Giant, July 11, 2008

By 

Devesh Roy (Washington USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: India: The Emerging Giant (Hardcover)

Among all the books on India written by economists (recently there have been quite a few) this book has perhaps received the most favorable press. Reading this book one can easily discover the factors determining this disposition of the media. The book is a detailed work that does the delicate job of arriving at measured and researched judgments on India strikingly well. In effect the book dismisses the thick line distinction between optimists and pessimists on India's economic prospects. Arriving at measured judgments on India's prospects that are neither overtly pessimistic nor overtly optimistic required an in depth study of India's economic history in the post independence period. Seemingly straightforward this work had not been done. The reason is that to implement such a work required not one but several economists with their different specializations and also the expertise of social scientists from several other disciplines to handle the social and political complexity of India. Alternatively an individual author had to take upon himself/herself the extremely difficult task of wearing these different hats and more importantly in a way that the hats conformed to each other. This could be difficult but not impossible as the book demonstrates (by virtue of being written by a single author). In fact this is the essence of the book's thesis statement about India: difficult but not impossible.
The book does a great job of compiling several important facts about India's economic performance. The most exciting aspects of the book come where it debunks several of the orthodoxies that fail to stand the test of hard numbers. An earlier book Freakanomics by Steven Levitt demonstrated the power of hard numbers. Those hard numbers led to determination of causality between events/issues that casual observation would never detect or guess, for example between abortion laws and reduction in crime. The hard numbers in this book do not discover new causality as much as they demolish some prevalent myths which are either not based on numbers or ex post can be thought of to be based on "soft" numbers. Thus, issues like when did poverty decline in India and what determined the changes in poverty levels have been challenged with some real hard numbers. Poverty, an issue of great economic and political importance in India has attracted several data engineers and data reverse engineers. The book presents numbers coupled with an easy and exciting tutorial on how to read the numbers correctly that is likely to cause some unemployment among these resources. At the same time, the critical analysis of numbers in the book is likely to generate new employment for social scientists.
Generations of social scientists working on India for example have thought of Nehru (India's first prime minister) as the ultimate Fabian socialist who aspired for total government control and suppressed private enterprise. It is a different matter that no one sat down to check what the numbers could say on this. The book rigorously demonstrates that perceptions on this have been so far from truth. For those working on India's economic history, the book thus offers new employment indeed.
This book is in fact a natural sequel to the epic "Economic History of India" by Dharma Kumar. If Economic History of India is the right book for the pre-independence India, this book is the right one for post independence India. The tenor of the book is definitely different written by stalwarts in different disciplines, the former by an economic historian and the latter by a trade economist. That these two books could combine in a seamless fashion exemplifies that rigorous research by masters always produces masterpieces independent of time.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive Study, December 5, 2009

By 

B.Sudhakar Shenoy (India) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: India: The Emerging Giant (Hardcover)

This book is a comprehensive and in-depth study of the Indian Economy, its journey since India's independence in 1947 till 2006.

There is no doubt that India is now a rapidly growing economy, even under challenging and grim global economic scenario, and is considered to a be strong contender of the global economic pie in the twenty first century.

It is often said that India got independence twice - Political freedom in 1947 from the British Raj and Economic Freedom in 1991 from "License Raj".

Prof Panagaria documents and analyses the economic policy, principles, thought, directions, outcomes and his own views during the six decades of India's economic evolution.

The "Four Phases" and growth rates: 1. Take off under a liberal regime (1951-65 @ 4.1%) 2. Socialism strikes with a vengeance (1965-81 @ 3.2 %) 3. Liberalization under Stealth (1981-88 @ 4.8 %) 4. Triumph of liberalization (1988-2006 at 6.3 %), is the most logical segregation of the six decades of very distinct policy regimes of the times.

One chapter devoted to each of the above phases helps us understand the forces and factors that dictated the political and policy directions, based on domestic and international developments and compulsions.

Till the late 1980's the fundamental thought in Indian economic policy was based on a bias towards establishing a "socialistic" pattern of society, where the government played the predominant role in determining the allocation of "scarce" recourses. The public sector played a key role in most industries, and the Industrial Licensing policy coupled with powerful laws like Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Polices Act, Foreign Exchange Regulations Act, not only isolated India in global trade and investments from the rest of the world but also converted the whole economy into an autarky that crippled its soul.

In contrast, South Korea with a comparable per capita GDP as India's in 1960's adopted outward oriented and market friendly policies that propelled its economic growth and prosperity. The chapter "A tale of two countries" is an excellent read.

Since 1991, enabled by the massive liberalization of the economy that unleashed market forces and attracted foreign investments and technology, India's outward orientation has made a quantum jump to over 43 % as compared to just 8 % in the late 70's.

Despite excellent growth rates, especially in the last decade, India faces the twin challenges of equitable growth and poverty alleviation.

Prof Panagaria has devoted a chapter each to "Declining Poverty" and "Inequality" to discuss the two key topics that are often at the top on the manifestos of most political parties, at least during election campaigns.

Prof Panagaria advocates direct transfer of funds to people below the poverty line (BPL) instead of resorting to subsidies that result in corruption and leakage. Subsidies are not only regressive, but are distortionary argues the author. This policy prescription cuts across all sectors. Given the lack of connectivity and poor reach of the banking system in remote areas, I personally doubt the feasibility of such transfers.

A chapter each to discuss key sectors - Finance, Agriculture, Industry, Education, Health care, Manufacturing, Tax Reform. Telecom and Electricity to name some, the depth of coverage, references, analysis and concluding remarks are splendid.

An excellent reference material, I would recommend this as essential reading to students, business managers, bureaucrats and politicians who will shape the economic destiny and prosperity of the world's largest democracy in the Twenty First Century.