An Economist's Quest For Reforms: The Vajpayee and Singh Years

By Arvind Panagariya

In this volume, veteran economist Arvind Panagariya compares two Prime Ministers' approach towards economic reforms-Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. He shows how the Vajpayee government was almost relentless in pursuit of reforms and enacted them in all areas, save a few. In his opinion, along with Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, Vajpayee 'must be credited with laying the foundation of the new India'.

Vajpayee lost the parliamentary elections of May 2004, which led to the emergence of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) that ruled the country till May 2014. Although Dr Manmohan Singh, who had been the finance minister when India's economy was liberalized, served as the prime minister during both these terms, reforms came to a standstill. Social spending largely became a substitute for economic reforms. However, in its first term, the UPA did not do anything to either disrupt the prior reforms or introduce anti-growth policies. As a result, the economy grew at an 8 per cent-plus annual rate. Unfortunately, in its second term, the UPA turned outright anti-reform, taking numerous steps that eventually led to a drop in the growth rate during its last two years. Dr Panagariya analyses the reasons behind this.

A book that highlights the importance of economic reforms to the public and to policymakers, An Economist's Quest for Reforms is essential reading to understand India's economic trajectory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperBusiness
• Release date: Mar 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9789354894084

Arvind Panagariya

Arvind Panagariya is a professor of economics and the Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy at Columbia University. He is also the Director of the Raj Center on Indian Economic Policies at Columbia University. He served as the first vice-chairman of the NITI Aayog from January 2015 to August 2017. He is the author of more than fifteen books, among them India's Tryst with Destiny with Jagdish Bhagwati, which has been called 'a manifesto for policymakers and analysts'. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Bhushan in 2012.

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