The role of exports in India's economic growth

We analyze the role of exports in India's economic growth and examine whether the export-led growth hypothesis (ELGH) applies to India. Our causality analysis provides support for the validity of the ELGH for India in the trade liberalization phase. Error variance decomposition and other analyses are also undertaken; these corroborate the results of the causality analysis and suggest that the rapid growth of exports has played a substantial role in increasing the growth rate in India following the economic reforms of 1991.     

India's quiet economic revolution

Montek S. Ahluwalia, Secretary of the Indian Finance Ministry, is one of the major architects of India's program of economic liberalization. Since June 1991, he has worked on gradual reforms that have enabled India's once floundering economy to “turn the corner” where other countries trying to reform more rapidly have not. Based on budget figures that the Finance Minister, Dr. Manmachan Singh presented to the Indian Parliament on February 28, 1994, Mr. Ahluwalia reviews the government's reforms in the tax, public, financial, and industrial sectors, in trade and exchange policies, and also examines the progress India has made toward macroeconomic stability.     

India: Trade Policy Review

The review of India's trade policy by the WTO, the third of its kind, is in three parts: the report by the WTO secretariat, a statement by the government of India and minutes of the discussion of the report by the trade policy review board. The review provides detailed information not only on India's trade and foreign investment policies but also an analytical review of India's export and economic performance. The review notes that India has made considerable progress with the liberalisation of its trade and investment regime, but it has a long way to go if it were to achieve a growth rate of eight to nine per cent, the stated objective of the policy makers. This paper, drawing upon the material in the report, analyses India's growth prospects and endorses the broad conclusions of the report.     

The Growing Dominance of China in South Asia: An Indian Perspective

India's economic relations with its neighbors are important for the stable and peaceful development of the South Asian region and for its own security. In a globalized world, economic relations play a major role in deciding political relations and collaboration at multilateral fora. In the context of China's increasing trade and investment relations with India's neighboring countries, the present study examines where and how China has been improving its presence vis-à-vis India in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. Further, the study also explores the factors of India's loss of market in its neighboring countries and suggests remedial measures.     

What Drives India's Surge in Service Exports?

India's prowess in the service sector has been recognised the world over. Sustaining services exports is important not only to sustain India's high growth rate but also to compensate for a consistent deficit in merchandise trade and to maintain stability on the external sector. In this context, we analyse the factors of India's performance in services exports over the past three decades. The results reveal that endowment factors such as human capital, improvement in physical infrastructure and financial development are key drivers for India's surge in services exports along with world demand, exchange rate and manufacturing exports. While factors such as institutions, R&D expenditure, telecommunication, foreign direct investment and financial development significantly impact the export of modern services, traditional services exports are more dependent on infrastructure development, manufacturing exports, world demand and exchange rate. India's economic reforms in the financial sector, FDI, communication so far have helped the services exports, but India needs to focus on supply‐side factors to improve the competitiveness – and thereby volume – of services exports.     

Is India Specialising in Polluting Industries? Evidence from US‐India Bilateral Trade

Recently, the apex environmental agency of India observed that domestic industrial pollution has been increasing at an alarming rate over the last two decades, and the need to rein in traditional polluting industries. This raises the pertinent question of whether the poor domestic pollution regime has affected the pattern of India's trade in dirty manufactured products in the post‐liberalisation era since 1991. We find that on the whole, India has remained a net importer of pollution‐intensive manufactured goods; however, there is a distinct trend of increasing specialisation in specific dirty industries especially in the bilateral trade with high‐income countries, and to a lesser degree with low‐income countries. The USA being India's single largest country trading partner in the post‐liberalisation era, we test for pollution offshoring at the finer industry level in US‐India bilateral trade. While we find that the pollution haven effect is not significant, India's specialisation in certain dirty manufacturing industries through the last decade remains a disturbing trend. India needs to integrate environmental sustainability within industrial growth urgently, and it is pertinent to implement policies which would reflect the true pollution costs in an industry that is increasingly competing in the international market.     

Book review

Abstract

Concerns about relatively high degrees of exchange rate pass-through in a number of emerging economies have contributed to a fear of floating. Despite the obvious policy relevance of this issue there is hardly any existing literature that has examined aggregate CPI pass-through for India, which has been liberalizing its economy since 1991. This paper estimates exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) at the aggregate level into India's CPI for the period 1980Q1 – 2005Q3. We also analyze whether exchange rate pass-through in India has changed over time, particular since 1991, which was the beginning of the country's economic liberalization program.     

Understanding India's attitude toward foreign investment

India's leadership of the developing world is long standing, and understanding why it has reservations about a complete commitment to free trade and opening its economy to foreign investment–India has once again been listed under the Super 301 clause of the 1988 Trade Act–can provide insights into the thinking of other developing countries.     

The Impact of Trade Openness on Regional Inequality: The Cases of India and Brazil

Regional inequalities are large in India and Brazil and represent a development challenge. This article aims to determine whether regional inequalities are linked to a country's trade openness. An annual indicator of regional inequalities is constructed for India for the period 1980–2004 and for Brazil from 1985–2004. Results from time series regressions show that Brazil's trade openness contributes to a reduction in regional inequalities. The opposite result is found for India. India's trade openness is an important factor aggravating income inequality among Indian states. In both countries, inflows of foreign direct investment are found to increase regional inequalities.     

Animalizing India: emerging signs of an unruly market

Focusing on recent artistic and photojournalistic portraits of India as an animal – an elephant or tiger – that wanders alone or sometimes with another animal companion – dragon or panda bear – called China, this article analyzes the ways in which India's potential as an emerging market and a rising power is being conjured in the popular aesthetics of magazine and nonfiction book covers. Even as an outpouring of verbal discourse from business and policy experts has hailed an India that is transitioning from a peripheral Third-World nation to a rising power, a steady stream of visual illustrations, including, those that deploy animal avatars, has sought to illuminate the vicissitudes of India's newfound economic recognition. Ultimately, my article's tracking of the visual semiotics of India's animal imprints seeks to get inside an economy of appearances in which zoological embodiments arbitrate this non-Western nation's prospects for entering economic globalization's newly minted scale of “emerging market.”     

Emerging economies and the global financial crisis: Evidence from China and India

The global financial crisis (GFC) spread from the US and the EU economies to the developing world. In this article, we seek to gain a better understanding of clear contexts, attendant mechanisms, and processes associated with the GFC in China and India. We identify and synthesize the available evidence on the size of the external shock, the cushioning effects, and responses associated with the GFC to propose a framework that enables us to analyze more deeply the antecedents and consequences of the GFC in these two economies. Because of differences in their economic, social, and political backgrounds, China and India have exhibited noteworthy differences in the impacts and responses to the GFC. The findings indicated that trade and investment linkages with the outside world and the degree of personal globalization affected the size of the external shock associated with the GFC. In China's case, a sound macroeconomic policy framework and the state's control on the economy provided a cushion effect, which acted as a buffer to protect the economy against the external shock. China's and India's responses to the GFC included a shift from export‐driven to domestic demand‐led growth and diversion and shift of economic links away from economies associated with the GFC. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Change in climate for foreign invesment in India

In 1991, India's Socialist economy hit its nadir. The pressures of the Gulf War had prompted a run on Indian foreign exchange reserves and forced Indian to seek loans from the IMF and World Bank to bail out the economy. Since then, economic and structural reforms have strenghtened India and made it more attractive to foreign investment. The convertability of the rupee, higher thresholds for foreign ownership, lower customs duties and the abolition of industry licencing have eliminated old investment stumbling blocks. These reforms have made India, says Thomas, an even better investment prospect than China, India's new rival.     

Risky business: Financial‐sector liberalization and China

China's dramatic growth in exports, its rising conflict with its trade partners over the perceived undervaluation of the renminbi, and the snail's pace of financial liberalization is pushing its bilateral trade and monetary relations to a boil. Discontent in the United States, Japan, Southeast Asia, and, most recently, Brazil, has led popular pundits and even country finance ministers to speak publicly of a “currency war” with many calling for the de‐pegging of the renminbi to the dollar and an immediate appreciation of China's currency. However, China's history of liberalization, beginning with the opening to the West in 1978, is well known as one of gradualism in trade and the financial spheres. Economic history is replete with economic crises brought on by too rapid or premature liberalization of countries' capital flows. This article presents the case both for and against capital account liberalization and highlights the risks that China in particular confronts in responding to external demands for greater openness and an appreciation of the renminbi. It clearly captures the tightrope that China must walk between responding to the demands of its trade partners and maintaining economic growth and political stability at home. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

当代国际贸易新现象研究

20世纪90年代以来,国际贸易发展有三个明显的特征,即国际贸易增长快于生产的增长,贸易自由化成为各国的主流贸易政策的同时贸易保护主义又增加了新的表现形式,以及多边国际经济协调机制不断强化且区域自由贸易安排也备受青睐.本文在此基础上,首先,分析了当代国际贸易增长的内在动力与有利条件;其次,总结出国际贸易发展趋势中的新特点;进而揭露了贸易自由化进程中各种矛盾现象的本质;最后,给出了相应的结论与政策思路.     

Aspirations and entrepreneurial motivations of middle-class consumers in emerging markets: The case of India

The world is eyeing emerging markets where increasing numbers of consumers are entering into a new segment called the middle class. In emerging markets, this new segment of the population, as it moves up the economic ladder and seeks a better life, is considered the backbone of the economy. In this study, India is chosen because its economic progress, and changing cultural and demographics shifts, have set the stage for fundamental change of the country's middle class consumers, who are exhibiting new life-aspirations and entrepreneurial pursuits. While India's middle class continues to grow in size and importance, the existing research fails to fully address questions regarding their aspirations or life goals, entrepreneurial motivations, and demographic characteristics.This study attempts to fill the void by focusing on life goals, attitudes, and behaviors of the middle class consumers. Specifically, this study focuses on their aspirations and entrepreneurial motivations. The data collected from India reveals interesting insights about this important segment of India's people. Their demographic profiles suggest that they are well-educated, employed full-time and own assets. Furthermore, these middle class consumers express their confidence in attaining life aspirations such as financial success and personal growth. They tend to seek more opportunities for accomplishing life goals and display entrepreneurial motivations.     

Doing Business in India

On its independence in 1947, India was among the two most industrialized nations in Asia. Since then it adopted a “mixed economy” approach that hindered its national growth and the optimum utilization of its immense resources (both natural and human). To re‐establish itself as an economic force in the region, India liberalized its economy in early 1990s. The adoption of the “free market economy” model has created great opportunities for foreign businesses. This article provides useful information on the complex business environment, aimed to help foreign businessmen and investors to develop a good understanding on key background knowledge for being successful in India. It reviews Indian historical development, political structure and climate, international relations, and economy and foreign trade. India's infrastructure, legal framework, socio‐cultural set‐up, competitive environment, as well as market structure and potential are also analyzed. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Trade Liberalisation,Economic Development and Poverty Alleviation

In a distinguished career spanning more than four decades, Jagdish Bhagwati has made numerous contributions to both trade theory and trade policy analysis. The current paper focuses on Bhagwati's major contribution to the ongoing debate surrounding the influence of trade liberalisation upon economic development and its potential to alleviate poverty in the world's poorest economies. In order to highlight Bhagwati's contributions in these fields we focus on the arguments developed in two of his numerous landmark publications; first his seminal 1964 paper on the Pure Theory of International Trade and, second, his 2004 book entitled In Defense of Globalization. Although separated in time by some four decades we argue that these two publications, despite their very different characters, each demonstrate beyond doubt the significance of Bhagwati's work in improving our understanding of the true nature of international trade and its potential to address questions of global poverty.     

India's Informal Trade with Bangladesh: A Qualitative Assessment

The large and vibrant informal trade between India, and Bangladesh continues to thrive despite unilateral/regional/multilateral trade liberalisation in these two countries. This calls for an in-depth analysis of India's informal trade with Bangladesh. Using insights from the New Institutional Economics informal and formal institutions engaged in cross-border trade are contrasted to examine whether informal trading arrangements provide better institutional solutions. The analysis, carried out on the basis of an extensive survey conducted in India and Bangladesh reveals that informal traders in India and Bangladesh have developed efficient mechanisms for contract enforcement, information flows, risk sharing and risk mitigation. Further, informal traders prefer to trade through the informal channel because the transaction costs of trading in the informal channel are significantly lower than the formal channel implying that informal trade takes place due to the inefficient institutional set up in the formal channel. The principal policy implication from the study is that unless the transacting environment of formal traders improves, informal trade will continue to coexist with formal trade, even if free trade is established in the SAARC region.     

The Gandhian model of self-reliance in the Indian economy

While Mahatma Gandhi is known primarily as a freedom-fighter he had also very definite ideas on the appropriate ways of his country's economic and social development which anticipated major elements of the present development strategies of India as well as a number of other developing countries. Dr Gosalia evaluates India's revised economic strategy in order to explore the practical strength of the Gandhian model of self-reliance.     

中国与印度双边经贸合作发展：问题及对策

随着中国与印度两个发展中大国的迅速崛起,中印两国双边贸易增长迅速,双边相互投资逐步上升,但同时存在贸易保护主义、低水平贸易、非经济因素等一系列制约因素。为促进中印经贸持续健康发展,两国应继续增强政治互信,建立＂金砖四国＂经济战略对话机制,优化贸易结构,扩大产业内贸易,采取措施减少贸易摩擦及其损失,进一步加强能源合作,建立中印自由贸易区。