1 India’s Economic Growth and Market Potential: Benchmarked

Purpose – In the context of India’s growth and development benchmarked against China, this paper addresses two important research questions: How do the growth models and market potential of China and India compare? What are some policy lessons to be learned? Design/methodology – This paper is a critical analysis and review of the empirical results. Findings – While India has adopted policies that have stimulated consumer demand and fostered entrepreneurship, China has adopted policies that have encouraged resource-mobilization. China’s physical infrastructure, while impressive, may have come at the cost of social investments (e.g., primary and secondary education). Empirical result shows that social investments are important for an economy’s sustained growth, more than incentives to attract foreign direct investments. While the structure of the economy appears to be more promising for India, there is one enigmatic issue yet to be understood: China’s path of economic development (agriculture to industry to services) has bee