Deep institutional reform in India’s government needed, Baker Institute expert says

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David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Jeff Falk
713-348-6775
jfalk@rice.edu

Deep institutional reform in India’s government needed, Baker Institute expert says

HOUSTON – (Feb. 26, 2015) – In his first nine months in office, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a raft of initiatives, including a broad push to boost manufacturing. As India awaits the Modi government’s budget speech on Feb. 27, only major restructuring and bold moves recommended in the speech will suffice to unleash India’s true economic potential, according to Russell Green, an India expert and economist at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Credit: thinkstockphotos.com/Rice University

“India needs to upset the apple cart,” Green said. “The nation needs double-digit growth to attack poverty in a meaningful way. The present government system deeply forms the present economic structure and hampers growth in the most critical areas of the economy. Addressing the government’s broader micromanagement mindset would constitute bold reform.”

Green said the Indian government must totally rethink its approach to providing public goods. “As of now, the justice, education and infrastructure systems are woefully inadequate, and more money is not a solution,” Green said. “Modi’s team must rethink management, incentives and the government’s approach, and all of these issues need a good dose of institutional reform. By focusing such reform on a three-pronged approach centered on accountability, privatization and civil service, India can seriously transform the way its government is run.”

Green, the Baker Institute’s Will Clayton Fellow in International Economics and an adjunct assistant professor of economics at Rice, is available to comment on India’s economy and Modi’s reform efforts. Green served as the U.S. Treasury Department’s first financial attaché to India from 2008 to 2011.

Green recently published a Baker Institute study, “Can ‘Make in India’ Make Jobs?,” which examines the potential impact on employment of Modi’s new “Make in India” campaign to develop India’s manufacturing sector.

For more information or to interview Green, contact Jeff Falk, associate director of national media relations at Rice, at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.

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Related materials:

Green biography: http://bakerinstitute.org/experts/russell-green.

Founded in 1993, Rice University’s Baker Institute ranks among the top 10 university-affiliated think tanks in the world. As a premier nonpartisan think tank, the institute conducts research on domestic and foreign policy issues with the goal of bridging the gap between the theory and practice of public policy. The institute’s strong track record of achievement reflects the work of its endowed fellows, Rice University faculty scholars and staff, coupled with its outreach to the Rice student body through fellow-taught classes — including a public policy course — and student leadership and internship programs. Learn more about the institute at www.bakerinstitute.org or on the institute’s blog, http://blogs.chron.com/bakerblog.