Lead paper @rohlamba & me @AEAjournals symposium on India: pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10…. “Constituting 1/7th of humanity, fissured horizontally by region, religion ..ossified vertically by caste & patriarchy, India is as much subcontinent of quasi-sovrgn states as unitary country” 1/n 
A timeline of India’s major economic reforms and developments since 1980 2/n
Historically, 2 successful devpmt. patterns: USA/Europe: steady econ. growth (1.5%) over ~200 yrs. w/ eco. & pol. devpmt. co-evolving. East Asia: rapid growth (~5%) over ~50 yrs. w/ pol. devpmt. following eco. India different: democracy from start, then solid growth (~3%) 3/n
In the post-war period, only a select-"Narrow Nine"-group of countries matched India's post-1980 combination of pace, duration and stability of GDP per capita growth; & only 2 were full and continuous democracies 4/n
But structural, spatial, social, gender/child, and environmental transformations--while mostly tangible and substantial--have not matched the growth dynamism, even allowing for possibility that growth may be over-stated in the recent decade 5/n
STRUCTURAL: Premature de-industrialization, precocious servicification. Specialization not in low skill sectors; Inadequate flow of labour out of low productivity agriculture to higher productivity manufacturing/services. India defying not deifying its comparative advantage 6/n
SPATIAL: Divergence in living standards across Indian states but not across Chinese provinces or countries, even tho' porous barriers within India & hard barriers across countries. Real puzzle. Adiga, White Tiger, "India is 2 countries. Ocean brings light, River Darkness." 7/n
SOCIAL: Educational attainment improved in absolute terms across social groups. Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes/Other Backward Castes have narrowed gaps, albeit not dramatically, relative to Hindu Upper Castes; strikingly not Muslims 8/n
GENDER/CHILD: Striking social preference for boys immune to development. 2 types. "Missing Women" (~40 mn.): boy-skewed sex ratio at birth.”Unwanted Girls" (~20 mn.): fertility stopping choice when boy is born. Preference impacts children (stunting) & women (edn., working) 9/n
ENVIRONMENT: India’s pollution levels far greater than warranted by its level of development, which has worsened over time; especially surprising given economy is services not manufacturing intensive 10/n
Challenges going forward: Re-invigorating growth, which has been weak post-Global Financial Crisis and cratered recently (hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/pu…) but also accelerating development outcomes 11/n
Reason for optimism is that India’s relatively strong institutions, especially political, will create pressures for change. This is strong implication of @DrDaronAcemoglu & Robinson view that institutions are critical for development given India currently under-performing. 12/n
Reason for pause is that combination of weak state capacity, social cleavages of Precocious Indian Democracy (see Devesh Kapur in this symposium: pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10…) makes under-performance feature not bug. Hard work to revive dynamism, accelerate development lie ahead n/n
