India’s Long Road: The Search for Prosperity

India’s economic resurgence has been the subject of many extravagant predictions and hopes. In this powerful and wide-ranging book, distinguished economist Vijay Joshi lays out a penetrating analysis of the shaky foundations of the country’s performance, and charts the course that it should follow to achieve widely-shared prosperity.

Joshi argues that for India to realize its huge potential, the relation between the state, the market, and the private sector must be comprehensively realigned. Deeper liberalization and more extensive privatisation will be necessary. But they will not suffice to achieve India’s economic objectives. The state needs to perform much more effectively many core tasks that belong squarely in its domain. India needs more of the market as well as more of the state.

The road India takes will matter not only for the lives of its billion-plus people but also for the course of global economics and politics. In the course of his enquiry, Joshi examines in depth all the critical areas of Indian development policy, including employment and the ’demographic bulge’; investment and productivity; the markets for goods, resources, and finance; macroeconomic stability; public sector banks and enterprises; the infrastructure deficit; social protection and safety nets; education and health care; environmental sustainability; international economic relations; state capacity and accountability; and corruption and crony capitalism. His design for radical reform incorporates a fiscally affordable scheme to provide a regular ’basic income’ for all citizens that would speedily abolish extreme poverty.

An authoritative work of tremendous scope and depth, India’s Long Road will be an essential resource for anyone who wants to know where India is today, where it is headed, and what it should do to attain its ambitions.

Vijay Joshi, a distinguished economist, is an Emeritus Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. His past books on India (co-authored with I.M.D. Little) include India - Macroeconomics and Political Economy 1964-1991 (OUP and World Bank 1994), and India’s Economic Reforms 1991-2001 (OUP 1996). He has been Special Adviser to the Governor, Reserve Bank of India; Officer on Special Duty, Ministry of Finance, Government of India; Director, J.P. Morgan India Investment Trust; and Consultant to various international organizations such as the World Bank.