This paper explores the causes of India's productivity surge around 1980, more than a decade before serious economic reforms were initiated. Trade liberalization, expansionary demand, a favorable external environment, and improved agricultural performance did not play a role. We find evidence...

The recent crisis has demonstrated that a financially open economy has many sources of vulnerability. Even when a country does its homework, it remains at the mercy of developments in external financial markets. So, one lesson is that policy needs to guard not just against domestic shocks, but...

Using a simple growth accounting framework, we project India's future potential output growth rate through 2025. We argue that there is perhaps more upside potential than downside risks to our central estimate of annual growth, which is close to 7 percent for aggregate output, or 5.5 percent for...