1. Introduction to Development in India: Micro and Macro Perspectives

Our focus in this book is to look at the big picture from the vantage points of contributing authors’ thematic or sector specializations in order to draw out the successes and challenges of development theory as well as policy. Each one of the main authors represented in this volume are known for laying out specific research agendas that have been pursued over decades if not life times. By design, they distil and present the core ideas in an accessible style, which to some extent eschews technicalities that are normally unavoidable in modern day economics writing. Given one common characteristic of their Indian origin, their writing is either voluntarily or involuntarily suffused with Indian development policy debates. However, their international characteristic adds a more nuanced general perspective to these universal development problems that transcend individual country experiences. The book is organized into six parts: Formal and Informal Institutions; Aid and Poverty; Indian Agriculture Growth and Distribution; Financial Markets and Macro Economy; Technological Change, Trade and Development; and, Energy and Ecosystems.