Neo-liberal Reforms and Growth Fundamentalism
Sona Mitra
ECONOMIC REFORMS AND GROWTH IN INDIA: ESSAYS FROM ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY by Parimala V. Rao Orient Blackswan, 2012, 468 pp., 445
July 2012, volume 36, No 7

Economic Reforms and Growth in India is a collection of articles from the Economic and Political Weekly on the Indian growth trajectory in the post-liberalization period. The articles are spread between the years 2004 to 2010 focussing mainly on those article written in the later stages of the economic reforms. The introduction to the book by Balakrishnan offers an overview to the five sections in which the book has been divided, and provides a rationalization for the compilation. The first two sections provide an overall review of growth performance since falling out of the dirigiste regime. While the first section gives a historical overview of the growth pattern since 1950 till the recent past attempting to describe the Indian growth process, the second section delves more into econometric exercises to break the growth trajectory into structures and explain the phases of growth. The third section dwells upon the sectoral growth patterns emphasizing mainly on the industrial and trade patterns. The fourth section has articles on the State level and regional aspects of growth in India and the last small section has three articles on the political economy of Indian growth.

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