The Dragon and the Elephant : Agricultural and Rural Reforms in China and India/edited by Ashok Gulati and Shenggen Fan. New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2008, xxiv, 548 p., tables, figs., ISBN 0-19-569350-7.

    Contents: Foreword. Preface. Acknowledgments. I. Introduction and overview: 1. Introduction/Shenggen Fan, Ashok Gulati, and Sara Dalafi. 2. Overview of reforms and development in China and India/Shenggen Fan, Ashok Gulati and Sara Dalafi. II. Access to land, health, and education: initial conditions and reforms: 3. The Chinese land tenure system: practice and perspectives/Yang Yao. 4. Land institutions, policy, and reforms in India/Ravi Srivastava, N.C. Saxena and Sukhadeo K. Thorat. 5. The basic health protection system in rural China/Ling Zhu. III. Investments in rural areas, technology, and irrigation: 6. Public investment, growth, and poverty reduction: a comparative analysis of India and China/Shenggen Fan and Sukhadeo K. Thorat. 7. Reforming the agricultural research and intellectual property rights systems of China/Bonwoo Koo, Philip G. Pardey and Keming Qian. 8. Agricultural research and technology in India: status, impact, and contemporary issues/Dayanatha Jha and Suresh Pal. 9. Policy and institutional reforms in the water sector: experiences and lessons from China and India/Ramaswamy R. Iyer, K.V. Raju and Jinxia Wang. 10. Future prospects for water and food in China and India: a comparative assessment/Ximing Cai and Mark W. Rosegrant. IV. Market and trade reforms: 11. Agricultural marketing reforms in China: striking a balance between sequencing and speed/Bingsheng Ke. 12. Market reforms in Indian agriculture: one step forward, two steps back/V.S. Vyas. 13. Gains from trade reform: the likely impact of China's WTO accession on its agriculture/Jikun Huang and Scott Rozelle. 14. Agricultural trade liberalization, poverty, and food security: the Indian experience/Anwarul Hoda and C.S.C. Sekhar. V. Rural diversification and vertical integration: 15. China's nonfarm sector development: implications for rural off-farm employment and rural development/Linxiu Zhang, Scott Rozelle, Jikun Huang and Alan De Brauw. 16. The rural nonfarm sector in the Indian economy: growth, challenges, and future direction/G.K. Chadha. 17. Diversification: amplifications for rural growth in China/Funing Zhong and Jing Zhu. 18. From plate to plow: agricultural diversification in India/P.K. Joshi and Ashok Gulati. 19. Transaction costs and marketing chain efficiency: the case of tomatoes in Nanjing City/Ruerd Ruben, Hualiang Lu and Erno Kuiper. VI. Poverty alleviation programs and safety nets: 20. Poverty alleviation in China: successes and lessons/Linxiu Zhang, Scott Rozelle, and Jikun Huang. 21. Antipoverty programs in India: are they pro-poor?/Kirit Parikh, S. Mahendra Dev and Abusaleh Shariff. VII. Lessons learned and future directions: 22. Synthesis: lessons and challenges/Shenggen Fan, Ashok Gulati and Sara Dalafi. References. Index.

    "China and India are the two most extraordinary economic success stories of the developing world. Both the economies have grown dramatically over the past few decades, elevating them from two of the world's poorest countries into projected economic superpowers. As a result, the number of people living in poverty have rapidly fallen and per capita incomes in China and India have quadrupled and doubled, respectively.

    This book investigates how the dynamics in the agricultural sector can help not only these two countries but all economies in transition. It shows how institutional reforms relating to land use and price policies can lead to high agricultural growth.

    Contributed to by experts from India and China, this thematically clustered book offers a set of policy and strategic options for future growth and poverty reduction. These include setting the right priorities for public spending, identifying trade and market reforms, creating social safety nets for the poorest of the poor, and building accountable institutions that can effectively provide public goods and services.

    One of the few to compare the sequence of reforms and their consequences in these two countries, this book concludes by examining future challenges to economic development in India and China, such as the need to ensure growth that is sustainable, equitable, and environmentally friendly.

    The Dragon and The Elephant offers valuable insights for development specialists anxious to multiply the benefits experienced by two of the greatest economic successes in recent times.

    The volume will be useful for agricultural research institutes, social and political scientists, implementation agencies, and post graduate students of development economics. " (jacket)

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