Ebook: The Market that Failed: Neoliberal Economic Reforms in India

The explicit adoption of a neoliberal reform programme in mid-1991 by the Indian government was the start of a period of intensive economic liberalization and changed attitudes towards government intervention in the economy. This book surveys the actual experience of the last decade to argue that this strategy has not just failed to deliver sustained growth, but has had damaging consequences from the point of view of employment, poverty alleviation and equity. It covers a wide range of areas, including fiscal and monetary policy, privatization and the experience with foreign direct investment, and analyses the political economy of the reform process.

C. P. Chandrasekhar is Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has published widely in academic journals and is the co-author of Crisis as Conquest: Learning from East Asia (Orient Longman), and Promoting ICT for Human Development: India (Elsevier). He is a regular columnist for Frontline (titled Economic Perspectives), Business Line (titled Macroscan) and the Web site of The Hindu (titled Economy Watch).

Jayati Ghosh is Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has authored and co-edited several books and more than 120 scholarly articles. She is Executive Secretary of International Development Economics Associates (IDEAS - www.networkideas.org) and Trustee of Economic Research Foundation (www.macroscan.org). She was the Chairperson, Andhra Pradesh Commission on Farmers’ Welfare in 2004 and Member, National Knowledge Commission, 2004-09. She has consulted for many international organisations, including UNDP, UNCTAD, UN-DESA and ILO. She was awarded the NordSud Prize for Social Sciences 2010 of the Fondazione Pescarabruzzo, Italy, and the ILO Decent Work Research Prize for 2010.