The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy

Edited by Chetan Ghate

Oxford Handbooks

The Handbook is centered on several key debates confronting the Indian economy ranging from the development displacement debate, the growth poverty inequality debate, the demographic transition debate as it relates to employment and employability, caste and social mobility, and the growth-environment debate. These debates are crucial to understanding the tensions that normal Indians experience in their everyday lives.

The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy

Edited by Chetan Ghate

Description

India's remarkable economic growth in recent years has made it one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Its rapid growth, however, has been accompanied by widening regional disparities, poverty, malnutrition, and socio-political instability. Understanding India's dualistic development process and the emergence of the Indian economic miracle are crucial in solving the obstacles India faces in transforming itself into a modern 21st-century economy.

The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy features research on core topics by leading scholars to understand the Indian economic miracle and the key debates confronting the Indian economy. The Handbook moves beyond traditional boundaries by featuring areas of research that will be important in the future, setting an academic standard for current and future research on the Indian economy. The Handbook is divided into eight major sections featuring expert contributions on a host of issues. These range from India's historical development before and after 1947; tackling poverty through innovative public policy; industrialization; health, education, and the demographic transition; governance and institutional reform; macroeconomic policy reform; and India's interaction with the world economy. A final Looking Ahead chapter reflects upon an agenda for economic research in the 21st century.

Ambitious in scope, diverse in its coverage of topics, and a rare unified and comprehensive treatment of India's complex and dynamic development process, The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy is a must-read for both researchers who are new to the field, as well as those who want to update and extend their knowledge to the frontier of the field.

The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy

Edited by Chetan Ghate

Oxford Handbooks

1. Introduction - Chetan Ghate
Section I: India's Historical Development

2. India and the World Economy: 1757-1947 - Tirthankar Roy
3. Battles Half Won: The Political Economy of India's Growth and Economic Policy Since Independence - Sadiq Ahmed, Ashutosh Varshney

Section II: New Insights into Tackling Rural Poverty

4. Estimating Rural Poverty: Distributional Outcomes, Evaluations, and Policy Responses - M. Suryanarayana
5. Micro-finance: The SHG Linkage Program - Prabal Roy Chowdhury
6. Micro-insurance: A Case Study of the Indian Rainfall Insurance Market - Xavier Gines, James Vickrey, Lev Menand, Robert Townsend
7. Caste and Upward Mobility - Vegard Iversen

Section III: Industrialization

8. Performance of Indian Manufacturing in the Post Reform Period - Poonam Gupta, Utsav Kumar
9. Informal Sector and the Developing World: Relating Theory and Evidence to India - Sugata Marjit, Saibal Kar
10. Structural Transformation and Jobless Growth in the Indian Economy - Rubina Verma
11. Development, Displacement and Food Security: Land Acquisition for Industrialization - Abhirup Sarkar

Section IV: Social Infrastructure and the Demographic Dividend

12. Reforming Primary and Secondary Schooling - Anjini Kochar
13. Higher Education Reform - Shyam Sunder
14. Health and Health Care Policy in India: The Case for Quality of Care - Jishnu Das, Jeffrey Hammer
15. Population Dynamics in India and Implications for Economic Growth - David Bloom

Section V: Politics and Policy

16. The Dynamics and Status of India's Economic Reforms - Nirvikar Singh
17. The Political Economy of Infrastructure Spending in India - Stuti Khemani
18. Aspects of Bureaucratic Corruption - Gautam Bose
19. Distributive Conflict and Economic Policy: Some Thoughts on Political Economy - Pranab Bardhan
20. Economic Growth and Ecological Sustainability in India - Pranab Mukhopadhyay, Priya Shyamsundar

Section VI: Macroeconomic Policy Reform

21. Fiscal Rules in India: Are they Effective? - William Buiter, Urjit Patel
22. Financial Frictions and Monetary Policy Transmission in India - Ken Kletzer
23. Monetary Policy, Capital Flows, and the Exchange Rate - Partha Sen
24. India's Trade and Exchange Rate Policies: Understanding the BOP Crisis and the Reforms Thereafter - Rajat Achaarya
25. Domestic Financial Sector Reform - Subhashis Gangopadhyay, S.K. Shanthi
26. The Convergence Debate and Econometric Approaches: Evidence from India - Samarjit Das

Section VII: India and the World Economy

27. The Globalization Debate and India - Priya Ranjan; Devashish Mitra
28. India at the WTO: From Uruguay to Doha and Beyond - Kamal Saggi
29. An Estimated DSGE Model of the Indian Economy - Paul Levine, Vasco Gabriel, Bo Yang, Joe Pearlman
30. The Development Patterns of India and China: A Perspective with the CES Production Function - Kamhon Kan, Yong Wang

Looking Ahead

31. What more do we want to know about the Indian Economy? - Ashok Kotwal

The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy

Edited by Chetan Ghate

Oxford Handbooks

Author Information

Chetan Ghate is Associate Professor in the Planning Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.

Contributors:

Rajat Achaarya (Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India)
Sadiq Ahmed (World Bank, USA)
Pranab Bardhan (University of California at Berkeley, USA)
David Bloom (Harvard University, USA)
Gautam Bose (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Willem Buiter (Citibank)
Prabal Roy Chowdhury (Indian Statistical Institute - Delhi Center, India)
Jishnu Das (World Bank, USA)
Samarjit Das (Indian Statistical Institute - Kolkata, India)
Vasco Gabriel (Surrey University, UK)
Subhashis Gangopadhyay (India Development Foundation, Gurgaon, India)
Chetan Ghate (Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, India)
Xavier Giné (World Bank, USA)
Poonam Gupta (Delhi School of Economics, India)
Jefferey Hammer (Princeton University, USA)
Vegard Iversen (Indian Statistical Institute - Delhi Center; IDPM University of Manchester)
Kamhon Kan (Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan)
Saibal Kar (Center for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, India)
Stuti Khemani (World Bank, USA)
Ken Kletzer (University of California - Santa Cruz, USA)
Anjini Kochar (Stanford University, USA)
Ashok Kotwal (University of British Columbia)
Utsav Kumar (The Conference Board)
Paul Levine (Surrey University, UK)
Sugata Marjit (Center for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, India)
Lev Menand (Federal Reserve Bank of New York, USA)
Devashish Mitra (Syracuse University)
Pranab Mukhopadhyay (University of Goa, India)
Urjit Patel (Reliance Industries, India)
Joe Pearlman (London Metropolitian University)
Priya Ranjan (University of California, Irvine, USA)
Vijayendra Rao (World Bank)
Tirthankar Roy (London School of Economics, UK)
Kamal Saggi (Southern Methodist University, USA)
Abhirup Sarkar (Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India)
Partha Sen (Delhi School of Economics, India)
S.K. Shanthi (Great Lakes Institute, Chennai)
Priya Shyamsunder (SANDEE Network)
Nirvikar Singh (University of California - Santa Cruz)
Shyam Sunder (Yale University, USA)
M. Suryanarayana (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India)
Robert Townsend (MIT, USA)
Ashutosh Varshney (Brown University, USA)
Rubina Verma (ITAM Mexico)
James Vickery (Federal Reserve Bank of New York, USA)
Yong Wang (City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
Bo Yang (University of Surrey and London Metropolitan University)

The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy

Edited by Chetan Ghate

Oxford Handbooks

Reviews and Awards

Selected one of CHOICE's "Outstanding Academic Titles for 2012"

"In this expansive handbook, edited by Chetan Ghate (Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi), top scholars of the Indian economy shine the light of academic rigor on many facets of this development experience. The coverage is extensive, spanning the entire breadth of structural transformation across all core sectors. What is unique here . . . is that the entirety of India's development is viewed through the lens of rigorous development economics. This permits the contributors to ask the deep questions of why and should without being unnecessarily speculative. The book is designed as a handy reference for economists wishing to catch up to the frontier of research on the Indian economy. That frontier will move, and this volume will help speed up that process. Highly recommended." --CHOICE

"Overall, congratulations are due to Oxford and Chetan Ghate for producing a book that, unlike most recent compilations on the Indian economy, is far more than just a randomly thrown through collection of specialised papers with a grandiose title that promises far more than the book delivers. The fact that most chapters are written clearly and with an eye to the lay rader means that this is much more than a textbook: it should weigh down one corner of the desk of anyone interested in Indian economic policy." --Business Standard

"An almost 1,000-page examination of India's recent economic growth by more than a score of experts in their fields should make for a comprehensive report on how the nation is doing. The vast scop of subjects means that many of the essays only have the space to delineate the broad contours of the area. That in itself is significant, especially when supported by volumes of empirical data and analysis. This tome does yeoman service in not just helping comprehend issues, but also in understanding the choices India has in the near future in a rapidly changing world, both internally and externally."--Business India

"India has turned from being a development failure to a place of development possibilities (it is still far from being a development success). To mark this transition, Chetan Ghate, of the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi, collaborating with Oxford University Press, has painstakingly and impressively put together a collection of 31 academic and policy essays on India's economic development. The Oxford Handbook that contains them will adorn many a bookshelf and library. Ghate deserves kudos for providing what is really an intellectual public good (which is always undersupplied) for scholarship on Indian economic development."--Economic and Political Weekly

"The volume provides a comprehensive overview of 200 years of development process. Covering such a long period is a herculean task and the editor deserves appreciation for this attempt...The handbook makes significant contribution towards the understanding of Indian economy."--Indian Economic Review

"This book is well-timed to help those unfamiliar with India make sense of the trends and directions in its economy. It addresses a broad range of topics: historical development, rural poverty, industrialization, social infrastructure, politics & policy, macroeconomic policy, India and the world economy, and future directions. There is diversity in the treatment of these topics, ranging from descriptive reviews of the literature to formal modeling and estimation using econometric techniques. Most chapters will be accessible to noneconomists and those with a limited proficiency in mathematical and statistical modeling. Even as it takes on contemporary issues not often reflected in other volumes, Ghate has taken care to cover core economic topics: industrial structure, income distribution, fiscal and monetary policy, trade, and many others. This outstanding volume is a must-have reference for scholars across disciplines that are interested in the Indian economy."--Journal of Regional Science

The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy

Edited by Chetan Ghate

Oxford Handbooks

From Our Blog

Five important facts about the Indian economy

By Chetan Ghate India's remarkable economic growth in the last three decades has made it one of the fastest growing economies in the world. While India's economic growth has been impressive, rapid growth has been accompanied by a slow decline in poverty, persistently high inflation, jobless growth, widening regional disparities, continuing socio-political instability, and vulnerability to balance of payment crises.

Posted on November 27, 2013

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