Recap

Key takeaways from the chapter

• As globalisation unfolds, developing countries are eager to understand how their neighbours develop, because they compete both against developed nations and among themselves.
• India, Pakistan and China have similar physical endowments but completely different political systems.
• All three followed a similar planned pattern of development, yet built quite different structures to carry out their policies.
• Until the early 1980s their development indicators — growth rates and the sectoral shares of national income — were much alike.
• Reforms began in China in 1978, Pakistan in 1988 and India in 1991.
• China reformed on its own initiative, whereas reforms were forced on India and Pakistan by international agencies.
• Policy measures had different effects: the one-child norm curbed China's population growth, while a comparable change is yet to happen in India and Pakistan.
• Even after seventy years of planned development, most of the workforce in all three still depends on agriculture, and the dependence is greatest in India.
• China has followed the classic shift from agriculture to manufacturing and then to services, while India and Pakistan moved directly from agriculture to services.
• China's industrial sector has kept up a high growth rate, unlike India's and Pakistan's, giving China a much faster rise in GDP per capita. …