scholarly journals State-Owned Enterprises in India: Restructuring and Growth

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sushil Khanna
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
The Political ◽  
Private Capital ◽  
Partial Privatization ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Bureaucratic Control

Economic reforms in India are often hailed as the march of private enterprise, unshackled from bureaucratic control. Though it is true that the Indian growth story is led by private capital, reforms have also unleashed a resurgent public sector in the Indian economy, with a significant contribution to investment and growth in India. This article looks at the political economy of SOE reforms, their partial privatization and restructuring, with enhanced autonomy as the key factors that have shaped a more dynamic SOE sector, at least amongst those controlled by the central government. As India moved to market-based prices and incentives, and better contract enforcements, central government SOEs (CSOEs) have substantially enhanced their profitability, investments and growth. As far as manufacturing SOEs are concerned, their profitability and efficiency is superior to private firms, while the performance of CSOEs in services has been rather poor.

All Shook Up?

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-174
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Chatterjee
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Autonomy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Dominant Classes

The Political Economy and Development of India (PEDI) outlined highly influential theories of both the Indian state and its bureaucracy. Professionals within the public sector were one of Bardhan’s three competing dominant classes, yet he was also clear that the state was an autonomous actor distinct from the rent-seeking officials who populated its lower ranks. Three decades later, economic reforms have ostensibly challenged the public sector’s economic, ideological, and policy dominance. This chapter argues that the Indian system remains more statist—and correspondingly less ‘pro-business’—than many scholarly interpretations today allow. Nonetheless, elite public sector professionals have become fragmented that challenge their coherence as a class, while new obstacles to effective state autonomy have arisen from the nexus between politicians and the petty bureaucracy.

The Political Economy of Post-Independence India—A Review Article

1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 787-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akhil Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Newly Industrialized Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
The Third World

Economists and political scientists have become increasingly interested in the political economy of India during the past decade and particularly during the past three or four years. The titles under review will be valuable not only to India specialists but also to comparative scholars because of the intriguing mix of conditions found in India. More like a continent than a country in its diversity, India is in some ways very similar to densely populated, predominantly rural and agricultural China, differing most perhaps in the obstinacy and depth of its poverty. In the predominant role played by the state within an essentially capitalist economy, it is closer to the model of Western social democracies than it is to either prominently ideological capitalist or socialist nation-states; like other countries in the “third world,” the state in India plays a highly interventionist developmental role. Finally, since Independence it has pursued, more successfully than most nation-states in Latin America and Asia, policies of importsubstituting industrialization and relative autarchy. In terms of its political structures, India differs from most newly industrialized countries (NICs) in that it generally continues to function as a parliamentary democracy. The federal political system creates an intriguing balance of forces between central and the regional state governments, which are often ruled by opposition parties with agendas, ideologies, and organizational structures quite different from those of the central government.

8. The Political Economy of Democracy

2018 ◽  
pp. 119-133
Author(s):  
Patrick Bernhagen
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Personal Rights ◽  
Key Points ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the relationship between democratization and the economy. It first provides an historical overview of the emergence of capitalist democracy before discussing some general problems of the relationship between democracy and capitalism, highlighting the main areas in which the two systems condition each other. It then considers the role of business in democratizing countries, and more specifically the role of business actors in the transition to democracy. It also explores the intricacies of combining major political and economic reforms. Some key points are emphasized; for example, capitalism focuses on property rights while democracy focuses on personal rights. Furthermore, capitalism produces inequality, which can both stimulate and hamper democratization.

After Neoliberalism: The Politics of Reregulation in Mexico

1999 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
The Political ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Neoliberal Reforms ◽  
Market Governance ◽  
Neoliberal Policies ◽  
Political Entrepreneurs ◽  
New Institutions

Neoliberal economic reforms, rather than unleashing market forces, can result in new institutions for market governance. By vacating institutionalized policy domains, neoliberal reforms can trigger two-step reregulation processes, as first, political entrepreneurs launch projects to build support coalitions by reregulating markets, and second, societal groups respond to these projects by mobilizing to influence the terms of reregulation. Depending on the strengths and strategies of politicians and societal groups, reregulation processes result in varied institutions for market governance. The article develops this argument by analyzing how neoliberal reforms in Mexico led to the construction of distinct institutions for market governance across four states (Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Puebla). The findings from Mexico highlight the importance of moving beyond the questions of why developing countries choose neoliberal policies and how they implement them. Students of the political economy of development should shift their attention instead to understanding the kinds of new institutions that replace those destroyed or displaced by neoliberal reforms.

Health Care Public Sector Share and the U.S. Life Expectancy Lag: A Country-level Longitudinal Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan M. Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Political ◽  
Life Expectancy At Birth ◽  
Political Economy Of Health ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

Growing research on the political economy of health has begun to emphasize sociopolitical influences on cross-national differences in population health above and beyond economic growth. While this research investigates the impact of overall public health spending as a share of GDP (“health care effort”), it has for the most part overlooked the distribution of health care spending across the public and private spheres (“public sector share”). I evaluate the relative contributions of health care effort, public sector share, and GDP to the large and growing disadvantage in U.S. life expectancy at birth relative to peer nations. I do so using fixed effects models with data from 16 wealthy democratic nations between 1960 and 2010. Results indicate that public sector share has a beneficial effect on longevity net of the effect of health care effort and that this effect is nonlinear, decreasing in magnitude as levels rise. Moreover, public sector share is a more powerful predictor of life expectancy at birth than GDP per capita. This study contributes to discussions around the political economy of health, the growth consensus, and the American lag in life expectancy. Policy implications vis-à-vis the U.S. Affordable Care Act are discussed.

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