Skip to main content

Contrasting Styles of Industrial Reform

China and India in the 1980s

Since World War II, China has had a command economy administered under a dictatorship, while India’s democracy has introduced a highly regulated economy. Despite obvious differences in their political systems, each country endured remarkably similar economic problems with respect to industry during the 1960s and 1970s. Both embarked in the 1980s on a series of industrial reforms designed to improve technology and efficiency in the use of resources, as well as to stimulate industrial growth in the face of declining productivity.

For economists, the two countries offer an interesting test case for examining similar reform programs launched from disparate political and economic systems. For policymakers concerned with the region’s stability, a clear view of the economic futures of these two major powers is paramount.

Examining and comparing the reform experiences of China and India up to the present, George Rosen shows that although China enacted more sweeping reform measures and produced more impressive local growth, it also experienced more significant inflationary spurts. Two-thirds of each nation’s population was involved in agriculture at the start of the reform period and nearly that many at the conclusion. Ultimately, the effects of the past industrial reforms in both countries in terms of significantly greater industrial employment or well-being of their populations were limited. An important lesson in these findings, argues Rosen, is that they actually reveal more about the political factors that limit and shape economic policy reforms in a dictatorship or democracy than they confirm the virtues of either capitalism or communism.

182 pages | 6 x 9 | © 1992

Economics and Business: Economics--International and Comparative

Political Science: Comparative Politics

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: The Rationale for the Book
1. The Political-Economic Systems of China and India
2. The Necessity for Economic Reform
3. The Reforms
4. Economic Results of the Reforms
5. Economic Reform and Political Systems
6. A Brief Summary and Some Broader Generalizations on Reform Processes
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Be the first to know

Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!

Sign up here for updates about the Press