Falling behind and catching up : India’s transition from a colonial economy

India fell behind during colonial rule. The absolute and relative decline of Indian GDP per capita with respect to Britain began before colonization and coincided with the rising textile trade with Europe in the 18th century. The decline of traditional industries was not the main driver Indian decline and stagnation. Inadequate investment in agriculture and consequent decline in yield per acre stalled economic growth. Modern industries emerged and grew relatively fast. The falling behind was reversed after independence. Policies of industrialization and a green revolution in agriculture increased productivity growth in agriculture and industry, but Indian growth has been led by services. A strong focus on higher education under colonial policy had created an advantage for the service sector, which today has a high concentration of human capital. However, the slow expansion in primary education was a disadvantage in comparison with the high growth East Asian economies

Economic growth in India during 1950-2015:Nehruvian socialism to market capitalism

Comparisons of pre and postreform economic growth in India are widely researched in the literature. This paper adds to this literature, but with a sectoral growth accounting perspective. We compare the proximate sources of economic growth in India during the 1950-1980 periods, the so-called Nehruvian socialist regime, with that of the post-1980 period, which includes the pro-business reforms in the 1980s and more aggressive pro-market reforms in the 1990s. We document two important features of India's growth dynamics. First, the overriding importance of the services sector in India's growth is not new, but it has always been the case in independent India. However, there has been a major shift in the composition of service sector growth. While the socialist regime fostered more nonmarket services, including the government sector, the market services sector flourished in the market regime, in terms of labour productivity, TFP and economic growth. Second, the economic growth in the socialist period was substantially driven by capital accumulation, except in the nonmarket services, whereas the market regime sees a combination of both productivity and capital accumulation

A PROgramme of Lifestyle Intervention in Families for Cardiovascular risk reduction (PROLIFIC Study): design and rationale of a family based randomized controlled trial in individuals with family history of premature coronary heart disease

Abstract Background Recognizing patterns of coronary heart disease (CHD) risk in families helps to identify and target individuals who may have the most to gain from preventive interventions. The overall goal of the study is to test the effectiveness and sustainability of an integrated care model for managing cardiovascular risk in high risk families. The proposed care model targets the structural and environmental conditions that predispose high risk families to development of CHD through the following interventions: 1) screening for cardiovascular risk factors, 2) providing lifestyle interventions 3) providing a framework for linkage to appropriate primary health care facility, and 4) active follow-up of intervention adherence. Methods Initially, a formative qualitative research component will gather information on understanding of diseases, barriers to care, specific components of the intervention package and feedback on the intervention. Then a cluster randomized controlled trial involving 740 families comprising 1480 participants will be conducted to determine whether the package of interventions (integrated care model) is effective in reducing or preventing the progression of CHD risk factors and risk factor clustering in families. The sustainability and scalability of this intervention will be assessed through economic (cost-effectiveness analyses) and qualitative evaluation (process outcomes) to estimate value and acceptability. Scalability is informed by cost-effectiveness and acceptability of the integrated cardiovascular risk reduction approach. Discussion Knowledge generated from this trial has the potential to significantly affect new programmatic policy and clinical guidelines that will lead to improvements in cardiovascular health in India. Trial registration number NCT02771873, registered in May 2016 ( https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT02771873

Did globalisation aid industrial development in colonial India? A study of knowledge transfer in the iron industry

The article explores the link between international economic integration and technological capability in colonial India. The example of the iron industry shows that many new ideas and skills flowed into India from Europe, but not all met with commercial success. The essay suggests a reason why. In those fields in which the costs of complementary factors were relatively low, the chance of success was higher. This condition was present in the craft of the blacksmith, in which the main complementary input was abundant craftsmanship. The condition was slow to develop in iron-smelting, where the costs of fuel, labour, capital and carriage of ore were initially high