The Context and Consequences of Economic Liberalization in India
Author(s)
Patnaik, Prabhat
Abstract
Liberalization is supposed usually to bring in large amounts of direct foreign investment. What has come into the Indian economy after liberalization however is not so much direct foreign investment as ‘hot money’ interested in speculation. This is hardly surprising: what we have witnessed of late is a ‘globalization of finance rather than a globalization of production’. Liberalization in these circumstances causes economic stagnation, rather than growth, as the economy gets tied to the caprices of international renters. It also reduces domestic food availability in the pursuit of agri-exports. The Indian experience confirms this, but with one exception: an increase in the fiscal deficit after an initial phase of deflation (contrary to what liberalization entails) stimulated a brief industrial recovery, but this too has started petering out.
