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One of the most active fields of research in economics over the last fifteen years includes the determination of the forces which affect the economic growth rate. While researchers have already been able to come up with several different models of gaining sustained growth even without the exogenous growth in productivity, research is still ongoing for variables that may be correlated with growth performance in the different versions of the Summers and Heston data set or simply the business cycles. It was found that a certain agent would be willing to sacrifice a portion of his consumption in exchange for living in an economy that experiences a faster growth rate. This chapter looks into the evolution of various growth models, specifically the neoclassical growth model, and examine how human capital and the state of technology should be incorporated in models of endogenous technological progress.

This chapter aims to provide a unified theoretical foundation to the term structure of discount rates. To do this the chapter develops a benchmark model based on two assumptions: individual preferences toward risk, and the nature of the uncertainty over economic growth. Previously, it was shown that constant relative risk aversion, combined with a random walk for the growth of log consumption, yields a flat term structure for efficient discount rates. In this chapter, these two assumptions are relaxed by using a stochastic dominance approach. Stochastic models of economic growth with mean-reversion, Markov switches, and parametric uncertainty all exhibit some forms of positive statistical dependence of successive growth rates. Because this tends to magnify the long-term risk, it is the driving force of the decreasing nature of the term structure.

This chapter evaluates India's chances of achieving an economic growth rate of more than nine percent under its Eleventh Five-Year Plan. While the Indian economy is going through its most remarkable phase of growth, lack of proper economic infrastructure such as roads, airports, and communication may turn out to be the biggest roadblock in sustaining this growth. This chapter comments on the government's use of public–private partnership (PPP) route for infrastructure creation. It also identifies some areas or sectors such as energy sector, education, business laws, and corporate governance that have the potential to push the economy on either side of the tipping point.

This chapter explores social order and entrepreneurialism in India, focusing on some economic contrasts between the North and South. It examines the depth of Southern transformation and identifies the mechanisms of transformation by concentrating on a particular Southern caste, the Nadars. It also considers the commercial implications of an emerging political revolution in a Northern state, bringing a Dalit party to power. Furthermore, it comments on Alexis de Tocqueville’s argument that the settlements on either side of the Ohio river, Kentucky and Ohio, were identical in all respects except for slavery, and that slavery influenced their landscapes of economic dynamism and listlessness. Finally, the chapter analyses lower castes in the North; the divergence between Northern and Southern India in terms of state-level economic growth rates and growth rates in per capita income; growth rates in both rural and urban enterprises; and growth rates of enterprises owned by other backward castes.

This chapter discusses the trade experience for twenty-one countries located everywhere around the poor periphery except sub-Saharan Africa during the first global century. It shows that while trade made it possible for the periphery to share some of the fruits of the industrial revolution taking place in the core, an industrialization-driven great divergence still emerged. To add to the forces of divergence, globalization fostered de-industrialization (e.g., specialization) in the periphery so that growth rates in the periphery fell behind those in the core still further. In addition, globalization-induced specialization in primary products must have meant greater price volatility in the periphery, and thus even greater divergence in growth rates.

This chapter examines whether India has the potential to emerge as a responsible player in the global context. The United States is searching for a strategic partner to realize its regional and global ambitions. India has emerged as a leading global player in international politics by acting as the leader and co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, along with being the unofficial spokesperson of the developing countries. It continues to maintain a stable economic growth rate and to emerge as a leading military power of South Asia, and is interacting with different countries to present its candidacy for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. These factors increase the chance of India emerging as a key stakeholder in the global scenario. India can play a key role in protecting and developing an international system, where the aspirations and interests of representing countries are fulfilled. Indian leaders also want to build a secure and dignified future for their people through strategic partnership with leading world countries.

Chapter 3 introduced a three-step framework that could be applied to case study analysis in order to extract insights for refining wind power development policy. The first step of the framework entailed the analysis of a sufficient number of national case studies to identify prominent commonalities that influence wind power development. In this book Germany, Denmark, China, the United States, Japan, and Canada were chosen as nations for analysis. Germany and Denmark—two nations that have laudable and sustained successes in wind power development—were selected in order to provide insight into successful wind power development policies. China and the United States, which have both experienced boom and bust periods of wind power development, were picked to provide insight into factors that cause such oscillations in development. Japan and Canada, which are two nations that have underperformed in regard to wind power development, were selected to provide insight into barriers to wind power diffusion. Although only six nations were included in this study, additional wind power policy analysis undertaken by the author in Australia and Taiwan provide general confirmation of the external validity of the findings that will be summarized in this chapter. In this chapter the social, technological, economic, and political (STEP) factors that emerged as influential for either supporting or impeding wind power development in the six case study nations will be summarized. The intention of this compendium is to provide policymakers and interested stakeholders with greater clarity regarding the factors that must be strategically managed in order to enhance the scale scope and pace of wind power diffusion. The factors introduced in this chapter should not be misconstrued as constituting a best practice list for optimizing wind power policy success. As was pointed out in the introductory chapter, energy policy is designed and implemented within a contextually unique environment that involves a seamless web of dynamically evolving forces. Consequently, the notion that it might be feasible to construct a universally applicable manual of best policy practice is a fool’s errand.