How is Investment to be Financed?

India’s policymakers discouraged private consumption by restricting and imposing high tariffs on the import of consumer goods to encourage savings. While it is worrying to contemplate the consequences of an American-style consumerism becoming a way of life in India, it is deplorable that the Indian consumer has paid too high a price for the nation’s past policies. The American consumer financed the growth of Japan and the East Asian countries. The rising level of consumerism in Asia today is contributing to international trade and supporting growth in the region. However, the resources of our world, including economic ones, are finite. Thus, the challenge for the next century lies in allocating these resources efficiently so that wealth creation is more equitable.