Abstract
Autore:
Missaglia Marco
Titolo:
"L´economia indiana dopo l´indipendenza: valutazioni e prospettive"
The evolution of the Indian economic system over the last seven years seems to suggest that India can break away from the long tradition of slow change. The policy changes that became the economic reform package in 1991 —freeing of industry, liberalisation of control systems, reduction of subsidies — have enabled the Indian economy to gain access to international technology, expertise and finance and thus to enjoy higher rates of per capita income growth. Adopting an historical perspective, this paper tries to address two issues. First, we want to understand whether the fruits of this process of economic growth have been evenly distributed or not, alleviating the remarkable disparities that characterize the Indian social structure. Unfortunately, we will see that in this respect the post-reform performance of the Indian economy has been disappointing. The second issue we want to analyze is about the sustainability of the process of Indian economic growth. We will argue that a pure laissez-faire approach does not guarantee the continuation and, more importantly, the widening to the largest part of the Indian people of the process of economic improvement. To this aim, some policy interventions are suggested in the paper, taking into account the lessons of utmost importance that can be drawn from the successful experiences of some East Asian countries. In particular, we will concentrate upon trade measures and argument in favor of the substitution of export subsidies with conditional import duties, i.e. import duties conditional to a given export performance.
