Studies in Indian Economic Policies – serie

Growth miracles typically have been studied at the country level. The Making of Miracles in Indian States breaks from that tradition and studies three growth miracles in India at the level of the state: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Gujarat. These are three of the largest and most diverse states in India. Andhra Pradesh is situated in the south of India, Bihar in the east, and Gujarat in the west. Bihar is the poorest among all states in India, Gujarat the third richest among the largest eighteen states, and Andhra Pradesh in the middle. Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat have long coastal lines while Bihar is landlocked. Yet, all of these states have grown at rates exceeding 8% for an entire decade in the 21st century.Despite many differences in the initial conditions, several common threads tie the high-growth experiences of the three states. First, accelerated growth has permitted acceleration in the growth of development expenditures in all three states, which has helped improve connectivity to markets. Alongside this growth, poverty has seen accelerated decline. Second, the composition of growth matters. Growth in high-value commodities such as fruits and vegetables, commercial crops, dairy, and animal husbandry in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat has led to accelerated reduction in rural poverty. However, the failure of labor-intensive industry has stunted the migration of workers out of agriculture into industry. Third, the quality of leadership that brings improved governance with it is central to improved outcomes in the states. Visionary leaders---Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh, Nitish Kumar in Bihar, and Narendra Modi in Gujarat---played critical roles in the making of all three miracles. Fourth, the three studies also bring out the importance of pro-market reforms and the adoption of technology in development. Finally, the studies show that good economics is also good politics: voters reward the chief ministers who bring about significant improvement to the people's lives.

Most discussions of India's substantive economic growth since the 1990s tend to focus on national level statistics or on particular sectors such as the financial and call service sectors or on the pharmaceutical industry. But with a population of 1.2 billion, India demands to be treated like a collection of individual "countries, " rather than a unified nation. Ten of its states have populations equaling or exceeding that of the United Kingdom. If the state of Uttar Pradesh were a country, it would be the fourth largest, behind China, India, and the United States. These facts pointedly tell us that if we are to understand the ongoing experiment in economic reforms and poverty alleviation, we must study India at the level of the state.In this spirit, State Level Reforms and Growth and Development in Indian States provides the first-ever comprehensive analysis of growth at the highly diverse state level. The authors argue that when the national government loosened its stronghold on industry and services, state governments were able to shape the fortunes of their citizens through state-level policy reforms. Because of this, every Indian state experienced accelerated growth, unlike China during the first two decades of its development when the eastern half flourished as the western half lagged. Every Indian state has grown faster in the last decade than any other decade in the post-independence era. In fact, some of the poorest states, notably Bihar and Orissa, have been growing the fastest.Professors Panagariya and Chakraborty and Dr. Rao refute the common assumptions that growth has not occurred or that poverty has not been reduced in all Indian states. The recent reforms have also led to improved access in every state to basic amenities such as permanent houses, electricity, water, and sanitation. These accomplishments notwithstanding, regional inequality on a per capita basis has grown as well. Reforms in state-controlled sectors such as agriculture, industry, healthcare, and education have not advanced as far as some analysts previously predicted. The authors outline the reforms in these areas and draw on the experience of states that have successfully carried out some of them. The authors pay special attention to reforms in the areas of education and health while recognizing that the Indian constitution vests in the states much of this legislative and other authority and while considering the real absolute rise in income, literacy, and health status across all the states.

When India embraced systematic economic reforms in 1991 and began opening its economy to both domestic and foreign competition, critics argued that they had contributed little to the acceleration of economic growth. Their argument had rested on the claim that growth in the 1990s was no faster than in the 1980s. This claim was quickly refuted on the grounds that when properly evaluated, growth had indeed accelerated in the 1990s and, more importantly, while reforms had been made systematic in 1991, they had actually begun much earlier in the late 1970s. Subsequently, the reforms of the late 1990s and early 2000s have led to a jump in the growth rate from six percent in the 1990s to eight to nine percent beginning in 2003. The reforms have also led to a major structural change in the economy: the trade to GDP ratio tripled since 1991, there has been a gigantic expansion of foreign investment in India, and sectors such as telecommunications, airlines, and automobiles have expanded at rates much higher than those observed any time in the past. This dramatic turn-around has led the critics to shift ground. They now argue that opening the economy to trade has hurt the poor; that rapid growth is leaving the socially disadvantaged groups behind; and that the reforms have led to increased inequality. They also argue that people themselves do not feel that their fortunes are improving.The five original essays in this volume, topped by a substantial introductory essay summarizing their findings, take these challenges head on. They use large-scale sample surveys and other data to systematically address each of these arguments. They show that trade openness has indeed helped reduce poverty not just in general but also among the socially disadvantaged groups. The contributors to the volume find no evidence whatsoever in favor of a negative impact of trade openness on poverty on any groups. The essays also show that inequality shows no clear trend and is unrelated to trade openness. Peoples responses have also now turned grossly in favor of reforms. Thus, when asked how they feel about the change in their fortunes in the recent past, an overwhelmingly large proportion of individuals from every conceivable group report improvements. Moreover, systematic analysis of the 2009 parliamentary elections show that people now reward the Chief Ministers in states in which they deliver superior growth outcomes and punish those that do not.This book is the first volume in the series Studies in Indian Economic Policies edited by Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya and published by OUP. It contains the first set of five original papers produced under the auspices of the Columbia Program on Indian Economic Policies housed in the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP).