The devastating effect of Covid19 on the Indian economy is by now well-known. The growth rate of the economy slumped to a negative figure in the year 2020-21. What is less talked about, however, is the fact that growth slowdown in India had started several years before the pandemic struck. The two questions that naturally arise are: what explains the long economic slowdown and what can be done about it. This book is an in-depth analysis of the economic slowdown in India in recent years and the reasons behind the persistent slowdown in the growth rate of the Indian economy in the 2010s, especially in the latter half of the decade. While discussing both macro- and microeconomic policies, the volume examines how the perspective on economic policy has evolved over time in consonance with experience by investigating major instances of such slowdowns in the past. Three global slowdowns (viz. the Great Depression of 1929, the stagflation induced by the oil crisis of the 1970s and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007) and the industrial deceleration in India in the late 1960s and early 1970s are discussed. The author also probes into the problems of inequality, poverty, inflation in the Indian economy pre- and post- pandemic and policies targeted towards development, manufacturing, and distribution of vaccines. The book further discusses possible economic impacts of the Ukraine War and the long-term problem of global warming. Concise and thoroughly researched, this book will be of interest to beginners, scholars, research students and teachers interested in economics, policy making and development studies.

This book discusses how to measure the level of development of an economy, particularly, the task of ranking economies in terms of their development. In this context, development is defined as an increase in people's level of wellbeing. The book emphasises that wellbeing is a multidimensional concept, and that it is important to ask how equitably the fruits of development are distributed, and as such it focuses on multidimensional, inequality-sensitive development ranking. Rather than using various specific development indices, which would lead to different development rankings for a country, the book proposes a dominance approach, which formulates conditions under which two economies can be ranked unambiguously, making it valid for all reasonable development indices. With the help of illustrative examples using real-world data, it demonstrates that such unambiguous rankings are possible, and that the proposed approach can be used to complement traditional approaches. An invaluable resource for researchers working in the field of development, the book will also appeal to practitioners engaged in measuring development. An excerpt from the book's Foreword:"[This book] is a comprehensive and valuable contribution to the literature on the measurement of inequality and the use of such measurement in the assessment of social welfare. I believe that it will be of much interest to researchers working on measures of inequality and social welfare as well as advanced graduate students who are looking for a solid introduction to this important area of normative economics." - Prof. Prasanta K. Pattanaik, University of California, Riverside, California, U.S.A.

This book discusses how to measure the level of development of an economy, particularly, the task of ranking economies in terms of their development. In this context, development is defined as an increase in people's level of wellbeing. The book emphasises that wellbeing is a multidimensional concept, and that it is important to ask how equitably the fruits of development are distributed, and as such it focuses on multidimensional, inequality-sensitive development ranking. Rather than using various specific development indices, which would lead to different development rankings for a country, the book proposes a dominance approach, which formulates conditions under which two economies can be ranked unambiguously, making it valid for all reasonable development indices. With the help of illustrative examples using real-world data, it demonstrates that such unambiguous rankings are possible, and that the proposed approach can be used to complement traditional approaches. An invaluable resource for researchers working in the field of development, the book will also appeal to practitioners engaged in measuring development. An excerpt from the book's Foreword:"[This book] is a comprehensive and valuable contribution to the literature on the measurement of inequality and the use of such measurement in the assessment of social welfare. I believe that it will be of much interest to researchers working on measures of inequality and social welfare as well as advanced graduate students who are looking for a solid introduction to this important area of normative economics." - Prof. Prasanta K. Pattanaik, University of California, Riverside, California, U.S.A.