India at the Crossroads

Macroeconomic developments during 2000 including a rebound of inflation, slowing industrial production, and downward pressure on the rupee and stock prices and have tempered optimism for India's macroeconomic performance during the last decade. They also underscore the longer-standing question of whether the basis for achieving sustained and rapid growth has yet been established in India. Most notably, fiscal policy, structural policy & poverty. These issues have been at the core of the ongoing policy dialog between the IMF staff and the Indian authorities, and this volume brings together some of the IMF staff's more recent analysis of these topics.Four main issues are addressed. Part I explores the factors underlying India's success in avoiding significant fallout from the Asia crisis and addresses broader questions regarding India's external vulnerability. Part II discusses the fiscal situation and the extent to which recent policies pose risks to India's growth prospects and debt sustainability. Monetary policy and financial sector reform are considered in Part III, and structural issues, including those related to poverty and interstate growth and structural policy implementation are covered in Part IV.