Why India and China have grown

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Page 358

India and China now account for nearly 20 percent of global output. A conference in Delhi in late 2003, sponsored by the IMF and India's National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), examined what led to rapid growth in both countries. A volume of the proceedings, India's and China's Recent Experience with Reform and Growth, coedited by Wanda Tseng (IMF Asia and Pacific Department) and David Cowen (IMF Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific), is now available.

Lord Meghnad Desai (U.K. House of Lords and London School of Economics) opens the book with a perspective on what led to China's lead and India's lagged growth performance over the last quarter of the 20th century. Suman Bery, Kanhaiya Singh (both NCAER), and Arvind Panagariya (Columbia University) take an in-depth look at reforms that have helped raise factor productivity and gradually accelerate growth in India since 1990. James Gordon and Poonam Gupta (both IMF) explore the role of the service sector in India's growth, and Hu Angang, Hu Linlin (both Tsinghua University), and Chang Zhixiao (Peking University) offer valuable lessons from China's experience in addressing urban-rural disparities and maintaining social cohesiveness.

Turning to the financial sector, Saugata Bhattacharya (Hindustan Lever) and Urjit Patel (Infrastructure...