In July 1991, India embarked on a program of economic decontrol that greatly speeded the previously slow process of liberalizing trade and domestic regulatory controls begun in 1978. But the focus of reform has been on manufacturing. Reform has barely touched agriculture, which accounts for...

This chapter deals with the distortions to price incentives for agriculture that result from the trade, exchange rate and domestic policies in place in the four main South Asian countries, by summarizing and comparing the findings and themes of the more-detailed case studies on India, Pakistan,...

This chapter deals with the distortions to price incentives for agriculture that result from the trade, exchange rate and domestic policies in place in the four main South Asian countries, by summarizing and comparing the findings and themes of the more-detailed case studies on India, Pakistan,...

The argument in favor of gradual - but sustained - financial reform is based on two factors. First, the development of borrower net worth will determine the health of the real and, ultimately, the financial sector. Thus, speeding up reforms when borrower net worth is subject to positive shocks -...

Local content programs - especially in the auto industry - accompanied many import substitution policies during the 1960s and 1970s, but most were abandoned in countries that liberalized trade in the 1980s, and early 1990s. The high economic costs of these programs, and their inherent...