Regional experience in a development economy

Many have written during the last quarter century, on the subject of regional imbalances in the process of national econo mic development. Some are of the opinion that regional dis parities increase during the early stages of development, but that they will decline after some unspecified higher level of development because of greater integration of the national economy. Others, on the other hand, think that regional in equality becomes a vicious circle of cumulative causation, with the center gaining strength and the periphery losing ground in infinite regress. Others say that regional disparities bear no fixed relation to the process of development as such, but rather that they are the artifact of the national political economy, which in turn reflects the world economic order. With such an abund ance of opinion on an important matter of policy concern, it is curious that there has been very little serious empirical study of what does in fact happen.

This is the reason why this volume by K.R.G. Nair is such a welcome contribution. He has assembled and assessed care fully data for the States of India from the 1950s to the late 1970s, and this in itself will be a great service to others who would address these questions. Further, his systematic examination of various types of data reveals a great complexity of trends and patterns, which no simple theory can account for. For instance, Dr. Nair finds that, although the poorer and more agricultural States have made relative gains in manufacturing production, the richer and more urbanized States have outstripped them in agricultural productivity, so that in the net there has been no clear trend in regional inequality.