IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2023-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

India's economic development since independence: An interpretative survey

Author

Listed:
  • Kunal Sen

Abstract

When India became a republic in 1950, the economy was primarily agrarian, with three-fifths of output originating from agriculture. In the sixty years since independence, there has been a significant transformation of economic activity away from agriculture, with less than one-fifth of output now originating from agriculture and the rest from manufacturing and services. Since the 1980s, along with structural change, there has been strong economic growth, till 2010, followed by a period of declining growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Kunal Sen, 2023. "India's economic development since independence: An interpretative survey," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-47, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2023-47
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2023-47-India-economic-development-since-independence.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bhagwati, Jagdish, 1993. "India in Transition: Freeing the Economy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288473.
    2. Laura Alfaro & Anusha Chari, 2009. "India Transformed? Insights from the Firm Level 1988-2005," NBER Working Papers 15448, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Jagdish N. Bhagwati & T. N. Srinivasan, 1975. "Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development: India," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bhag75-1, July.
    4. Satish Chand & Kunal Sen, 2002. "Trade Liberalization and Productivity Growth: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 120-132, February.
    5. Richard Palmer-Jones & Kunal Sen, 2003. "What has luck got to do with it? A regional analysis of poverty and agricultural growth in rural India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 1-31.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Manmohan Agarwal & John Whalley, 2013. "The 1991 Reforms, Indian Economic Growth, and Social Progress," NBER Working Papers 19024, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Singh, Nirvikar, 2008. "India’s Development Strategy: Accidents, Design and Replicability," MPRA Paper 12453, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Arvind Panagariya, 2004. "India in the 1980s and 1990s: A Triumph of Reforms:," International Trade 0403005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Mohammed I Ansari & Ira N Gang, 1999. "Liberalization Policy: ‘Fits & Starts’ or Gradual Change in India," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 41(4), pages 23-46, December.
    5. Kunal Sen, 2009. "International Trade and Manufacturing Employment: Is India following the Footsteps of Asia or Africa?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(4), pages 765-777, November.
    6. Majumdar, Sumit K., 2004. "The hidden hand and the license raj to An evaluation of the relationship between age and the growth of firms in India," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 107-125, January.
    7. Prema-Chandra Athukorala, 2008. "Export Performance in the Reform Era: Has India Regained the Lost Ground?," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Raghbendra Jha (ed.), The Indian Economy Sixty Years After Independence, chapter 6, pages 95-115, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. S. Devi & C. Thangamuthu, 2006. "A New Paradigm of Entrepreneurship vis-Ã -vis Liberalization and Globalization," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 7(2), pages 259-269, August.
    9. Ghosh, Saibal, 2013. "Do economic reforms matter for manufacturing productivity? Evidence from the Indian experience," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 723-733.
    10. G. P. Manish & Shruti Rajagopalan & Daniel Sutter & Lawrence H. White, 2015. "Liberalism in India," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 12(3), pages 432–459-4, September.
    11. Kunal Sen, 2008. "International Trade and Manufacturing Employment Outcomes in India: A Comparative Study," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2008-87, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Kambhampati, Uma S. & Kattuman, Paul A., 2009. "Growth responses to competitive shocks: Market structure dynamics under liberalisation," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 114-125, June.
    13. Saon Ray & Sabyasachi Kar, 2020. "Kuznets' tension in India: Two episodes," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-24, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Matthew McCartney, 2004. "'Episodes of Liberalisation' or 'The Logic of Capital': The Genesis of Liberalisation in India," Working Papers 134, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    15. Agarwal, Manmohan & Whalley, John, 2013. "The 1991 Reforms, Indian Economic Growth, and Social Progress," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 128, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    16. Matthew McCartney, 2015. "The Missing Economic Magic: The Failure of Trade Liberalization and Exchange Rate Devaluation in Pakistan, 1980–2012," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 20(Special E), pages 59-86, September.
    17. Saon Ray & Sabyasachi Kar, 2020. "Kuznets’ tension in India: Two episodes," IEG Working Papers 386, Institute of Economic Growth.
    18. Deb Kusum Das, 2007. "Trade Liberalization and Industrial Productivity: An Assessment of Developing Country Experiences," Working Papers id:1009, eSocialSciences.
    19. Arvind Panagariya, 2003. "India in the 1980s: Weak Reforms, Fragile Growth," International Trade 0309010, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Blackburn, Keith & Forgues-Puccio, Gonzalo F., 2009. "Why is corruption less harmful in some countries than in others?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 797-810, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic growth; Structural change; Economic policy; India;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2023-47. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.