APL (Ajiken Power Lunch)

APL (Ajiken Power Lunch) is a lunchtime workshop open to public, including IDE staffs, visiting research fellows, IDEAS students, outside researchers and graduate students. This workshop provides a platform for presentation of any work in progress where we can discuss in either English or Japanese.

Those who would attend a seminar are asked to announce yourself to receptionists on your arrival at the IDE and to obtain APL Organizers' signature on your admission card after the seminar.

June 27, 2016. (Monday) 13：30-15：00

Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization C22 Meeting Room 　

Regional Inequality in India

This paper evaluates the economic performance of 15 major states in India, and examines whether initially disparate states display any tendency of convergence in income and human development. Though the growth performance of the states has improved in the post-reform period since 1991, the states have diverged in per capita income, but converged in human development, indicating that the poor states, which have failed to catch up with the rich ones in terms of per capita income, have managed to catch up in terms of human development. The states, following different steady-state paths in income, are classified into three clubs -- one convergent and two non-convergent. The regional divergence and club convergence in income are explained in terms of inter-state variations in physical and social infrastructures, state-level policy reforms, FDI flows and economic structure. The results suggest that the poorly performing states could improve their relative economic position by undertaking investments in physical and social infrastructures, and speeding up the reform process, liberalizing investment and infrastructure policies. The regional convergence in human development is explained in terms of social sector expenditure. The effects of per capita social sector expenditure on human development are found to be stronger than those of per capita income, suggesting that the strategy for improving various dimensions of human development by increasing per capita government expenditure on social services would be more effective than the automatic improvement in human development resulting from the growth in per capita income.

Madhusudan Ghosh (Professor, Department of Economics & Politics, VISVA-BHARATI, India)

Hajime SATO

English