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Publisher
A CFR Book. PublicAffairs Books
Release Date
April 2013
Price
$28.99
304 pages
ISBN 978-1610392716
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Overview
In its history since Independence, India has seen widely different economic experiments: from Jawharlal Nehru's pragmatism to the rigid state socialism of Indira Gandhi to the brisk liberalization of the 1990s. So which strategy best addresses India's, and by extension the world's, greatest moral challenge: lifting a great number of extremely poor people out of poverty?
Bhagwati and Panagariya argue forcefully that only one strategy will help the poor to any significant effect: economic growth, led by markets overseen and encouraged by liberal state policies. Their radical message has huge consequences for economists, development NGOs and anti-poverty campaigners worldwide. There are vital lessons here not only for Southeast Asia, but for Africa, Eastern Europe, and anyone who cares that the effort to eradicate poverty is more than just good intentions. If you want it to work, you need growth. With all that implies.
"Could not have come at a better time."
--Real Clear Markets
"Almost a manifesto for policymakers."
--Economist
Read the Forbes review.
Read the Publishers Weekly review.
Read the D+C review.
"The authors' deep compassion for the poor, gimlet-eyed view of India's checkered economic past and genuine concern for its future shine through on every page."
--Wall Street Journal
"Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya are two of the great intellectual lights behind one of the greatest miracles of economic history: the economic reform of India, and its subsequent takeoff. It is not just the well-to-do who have benefited, but, especially, the poor. The lessons from the spirit of 1991 are not just relevant for India today; they are also of prime importance for the billions of citizens of low income countries around the globe."
--George A. Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001
"In this important book the two leading experts on India's economy refute the claims of those who reject pro-growth policies in favor of redistribution schemes. India's experience in the past two decades shows how a nation's economic growth reduces poverty and improves the well-being of disadvantaged groups. Bhagwati and Panagariya explain what India needs to do now and how other countries can learn from India's experience."
--Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University and President Emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research
"Assembling reams of evidence from India's astonishing economic success story, Bhagwati & Panagariya make an unbeatable case for why market reforms are essential to economic growth—and improving the lives of the poor. Serious reformers throughout the developing world cannot ignore this book or Bhagwati's work throughout the years."
--Hernando de Soto, President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy and author of The Mystery of Capital
"Every important developing country should be the subject of a masterful book like this. Bhagwati and Panagariya have paid a great service to India—and actually other emerging countries—by writing it. If it's a must read for scholars and practitioners of economic development, it should be absolutely mandatory for the Indian political leaders."
--Ernesto Zedillo, Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and former President of Mexico
Jagdish Bhagwati is university professor of economics at Columbia and senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. A native of India, Professor Bhagwati studied at Cambridge University, MIT, and Oxford before returning to India in 1961 as professor of economics at the Indian Statistical Institute. He is the author of many books, among them In Defense of Globalization.
Arvind Panagariya is professor of Indian economics at Columbia. He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has been the chief economist of the Asian Development Bank and a professor of economics and codirector, Center for International Economics, University of Maryland at College Park. He is the author of, among other books, India: The Emerging Giant.
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