Why Growth Matters
How Economic Growth in India Reduced Poverty and the Lessons for Other Developing Countries
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Beschreibung des Verlags
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Though it seems like common sense that economic growth lowers poverty, Columbia University economists Bhagwati (In Defense of Globalization) and Panagariya (India, The Emerging Giant) argue forcefully that growth is the only effective approach. They assert that India's economic development is relevant to the developing world as a whole, and, in lively fashion, rebut myths of growth and poverty under the Jawharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi administrations. The authors' view that a country with widespread poverty has a comparative advantage in labor-intensive goods, due to the availability of cheap labor, may be debated. Bhagwati and Panagariya more effectively argue that general economic growth is an indispensable prerequisite to redistributionist programs aimed at assisting the poor; without growth, there is little to redistribute. As much of the world struggles with elevated debt levels, the vision of India as "a role model for reform today" has applications reaching beyond the developing world.
