Why India Slowed

Unlike many equally poor countries, India has a strong entrepreneurial class, a reasonably large and well-educated middle class, and a number of world-class corporations that can be enlisted in the effort to provide public goods. Why, then, has India’s GDP growth slowed so much, from nearly 10% in 2010 and 2011 to 5% today?

NEW DELHI – For a country as poor as India, growth should be what Americans call a “no-brainer.” It is largely a matter of providing public goods: decent governance, security of life and property, and basic infrastructure like roads, bridges, ports, and power plants, as well as access to education and basic health care. Unlike many equally poor countries, India already has a strong entrepreneurial class, a reasonably large and well-educated middle class, and a number of world-class corporations that can be enlisted in the effort to provide these public goods.

Why, then, has India’s GDP growth slowed so much, from nearly 10% year on year in 2010-11 to 5% today? Was annual growth of almost 8% in the decade from 2002 to 2012 an aberration?

I believe that it was not, and that two important factors have come into play in the last two years.

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