India

This volume contains a set of papers on Indian industrialisation in the context of market-enhancing and trade-liberalising reforms that have been taking place. It begins with tracing shifts in Indian industrial policy since independence. The papers, presented in five sections, throw light on the various facets of the remarkable transformation of the Indian economy with reference to industrialisation, an area of major interest to Professor K.L. Krishna, to whom the volume is dedicated. The first section focuses on technical efficiency and total factor productivity growth. Though technological change is known to be the most fundamental driver of sustained economic growth, its measurement, however, has been beset with several conceptual and methodological problems. This section deals with these important issues. Urbanisation, an inevitable concomitant of industrialisation, industrial labour absorption and infrastructure required mostly, if not wholly, for the industrial sector constitute the theme of the second section. The third section highlights the role of international trade in the Indian development strategy and the consequent changes in trade policies and their impact on the Indian manufacturing sector. In section four, foreign direct investment, which is being encouraged with a view to facilitating technology transfer and impact industrial performance, is dealt with. There are several contentious issues in this area relating to the role of multinational enterprises, which are examined in this section. The final section deals with the environmental consequences of rapid industrialisation so as to design environmental policy within which one can promote adoption of clean development mechanism.