A book-talk on Breaking the Mold: India's Untraveled Path to Prosperity

India has a remarkable digital infrastructure, a burgeoning demographic dividend, a stable democracy, a high performing high-tech services sector, a learned and arguably well-meaning elite, and a phenomenally successful diaspora. There is also rising interest in the West to diversify economic supply chains away from China. Many omens suggest it may just be India's time to break upwards from a low-middle-income country to the high-middle income category Two key constraints may hold this march back. First, India's structural transformation has been unusual in having broadly skipped low skilled manufacturing as a dominant contributor to total output and employment, like Korea and China. Will this be a feature or a bug in the coming decades? Second, India's state architecture continues to be stubbornly centralized at all the levels of funds, functions and functionaries. Will the ensuing compromise in public provision of basic health and education prove irreversible? In sum, can India overcome these challenges to become rich before it becomes old?

Rohit Lamba is an assistant professor of economics at Cornell University. He has previously held academic positions at the Pennsylvania State University, University of Pennsylvania and New York University Abu Dhabi. He did his PhD in economics at Princeton University. He was also an economist at the Office of the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India. Rohit is the co-author (with Raghuram Rajan) of a recent book Breaking the Mold: India’s Untraveled Path to Prosperity, published by Princeton University Press internationally and by Penguin Random House in India.

Host or Publisher Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies