This book addresses a range of issues relating to the nature and implications of growth of India’s services sector, including factors contributing to the rise of services, output measurement and heterogeneity, growth of services exports, and employment in services sectors. From service tax, exchange rate and services exports, policy interest, employment potential and diversity of the sector to challenges in financial inclusion, trajectories of ICT services and contribution of education to GDP, it brings together diverse themes to highlight major concerns in the wake of the prominent role that services have played in placing India among the fast-growing economies in the world in recent years.
The services sector in India accounts for more than 60 per cent of the GDP of the country and 28.6 per cent of its employed across government, private or state corporations and non-government organisations. The volume explores whether the services sector (beyond agriculture and industry) holds the promise of fulfilling the benefits from India’s demographic dividend for its economic transformation through sustainable growth.
With key empirical analyses of household, enterprise and macroeconomic data for India within both formal and informal sectors, this topical book will be useful to scholars and researchers of economics, Indian economy, political economy, development economics, development studies, public policy and South Asian studies and also to development professionals, policy makers and industry specialists.
1 Introduction PART I Understanding services growth 2 Can services lead the Indian economy?3 Service tax in India: story of its evolution and amalgamation with goods taxation4 Exchange rate and India’s services exports5 Measuring services output: definitional and conceptual issues PART II Services sector, economic growth and employment 6 Services sector in India: an exploration of the heterogeneity across sub-sectors7 Employment potential in the services sector in India: an overview8 Diversity in services sector employment in India: evidence from India Human Development Survey, 2011–12 PART III Insights from sectoral experiences: education, financial services and the IT industry 9 Production loan access and urban self-employed households10 Contribution of education to GDP growth: measurement and policy issues11 Learning to ‘walk on two legs’?: divergent trajectories and the future of India’s ICT services
Shashanka Bhide is Senior Advisor, National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi and was Director, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India. He has contributed to research in agriculture, macroeconomic modelling and poverty analysis. V.N. Balasubramanyam is Professor (Emeritus) of Development Economics, Management School, Lancaster University, UK. He has published widely and his current research is on foreign investment, diaspora and development. K.L. Krishna is Chairperson, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai; former Professor, University of Delhi; and Member, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi, India. He has published in applied econometrics, industrial economics, productivity analysis and trade.
