Home

Economic Welfare of the people of a country depends on their personal income (with which they purchase Private goods and services to consume), on the provision of Public Goods and Services (which only governments can provide) and the Welfare Transfers they receive (net of taxes & leakages). Economic growth is critical to all three. Economic growth directly increases peoples income in a competitive market economy. It also increases the revenue receipts of the government, which allows it to provide more and/or better quality of Public Goods and Services (roads, sewage-water-sanitation, vegetation & parks, public & basic health, public & basic education, personal safety & security, effective legal & judicial service). In addition the quality of governance determines how effectively budgeted expenditures are translated into the amount and quality of public goods actually received by the people and the amount of transfers received. In the first thirty years of independence India's Economic Growth was slower than that of the rest of the World, with the result that our real per capita income (at Purchasing power parity) declined relative to the World average. Since then India's Economic growth has accelerated in two phases, following two sets of reforms: First in the 1980s and then in the 1990s. Consequently the Welfare gap between India and the rest of the World began to close. Sustaining growth in the 2000s required continuing policy reforms. Sustaining growth in the future will however require both economic policy and Institutional reform. To understand the past and the future, read the book, "The Sudoku of India's Growth and the papers in section, "Policy reforms & Growth,"