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Open research questions in Indian Economic and Social Development

29 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 1,489 Indian Economic and Social Development papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • • Jobs will keep growing but slowly: The PLI scheme, renewable energy manufacturing and electronics will help create jobs. • We need to teach people skills: To make sure everyone has a fair chance at getting a job we need to have programs that help people learn new skills and we need to help smaller cities grow. 3.6.Export Competitiveness and Constraints India’s exports are very important for the country’s growth. In the year 2023-24 India exported $437.06 billion worth of goods which shows that India is becoming a part of the global trade. Some sectors, like pharmaceuticals, automobiles and electronics are doing well.. There are some problems, like the cost of raw materials going up and down high production costs and relying too much on imported parts that make it hard for India to compete with other countries. When there are problems in the supply chain and other countries have trade policies that are not fair it makes it even harder for India to export. The government has tried to help by making it easier to export and by improving infrastructure. To keep growing India needs to come up with new and better ways to make high-value products and make trade agreements that will help the country. India’s exports have grown a lot in the ten years reaching a record high of $778.21 billion in the year 2023-24 with $437.1 billion from goods and $341.1 billion from electronics, sectors, services.

    Evaluating a Decade of Make in India: Policy Outcomes, Structural Challenges, and Global Competitiveness · 2026 · DOI

  • Our contextual focus on TVET reforms in India characterised by massive youth demographics, competing political compulsions, uneven capitalist development and increasing nationalistic tendencies reveal the complexities of policy adoption from the Global South perspective, an area that remains understudied.

    Uncertain itineraries: dual system of training and contemporary TVET reforms in India · 2022 · DOI

  • However, thanks to India’s noisy but resilient democracy, the direction and pace of India’s globalization, locked into the clash of two paradigms, one drawing its legitimacy from the rhetoric of secularism and social justice and, the other, leveraging on muscular nationalism, deep cultural roots, and rapid corporate-led growth, remains uncertain.

    Uncertain India? Deepening globalization, unanticipated consequences and the challenge of sustainability · 2019 · DOI

  • For example, as Solana (2014) explains, the EU and India have been working on a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) for the past seven years and even after twelve rounds of negotiations a conclusion to the FTA remains elusive.

    Book Review: The European Union and India: Rhetoric or Meaningful Partnership? by Pascaline Winand, Marika Vicziany, and Poonam Datar · 2016

  • Section II contends that all too little is known about a seemingly crucial sector—a vacuity that is not confined to India alone among the Third World economies—and that this tends to distort accounts of the general functioning of the international economy.

    ‘De-industrialization’, Industrialization and the Indian Economy, c. 1850–1947 · 1985 · DOI

  • I am suggesting that the role of the bania needs to be examined with greater care and with considerable caution. On the basis of the very limited evidence that scholars have examined, it is not improbable that the movement of per capita income 1800-1947 is in the direction I have suggested.

    Trends and Tendencies in Indian Economic History · 1968 · DOI

  • After all railway development was not limited by any such consideration, the government paid guaranteed interest, started state railways, and not only did not collect ‘going rates of interest’ ‘very quickly’ but suffered a net loss until 1901.

    Reinterpretation of Nineteenth Century Indian Economic History · 1968 · DOI

  • 7 7 Two other questions, however, remain to be evaluated with regard to our global economic relations : (i) the claim that stagnant export markets and soaring import prices have been major brakes on our expansion ; and (2) the approach to foreign aid as a solution for the specific problem of foreign exchange scarcity rather than a supplement to the domestic saving effort. What is at issue now is not a normative policy matter but a point of historical fact: Has our export expansion been limited by the inelasticity of world markets or by problems at home ? It is indisputable, of course, that our export earnings for one have stagnated over the last decade and a half, fluctuating around Rs 6,000 million whereas the value of total world exports has risen almost three- fold.

    India's Foreign Economic Policy: a Theoretical Framework · 1967 · DOI

  • It may be said that the most serviceable policy-guide would be not to encourage as far as possible more modern techniques of production than are warranted by the Indian experience, resources, scales, and costs, which are different from those in the cold climate regions where most modern technology takes shape.

    The Role of Foreign Private Capital in India's Economic Development: an Assessment of Policy and Performance · 1966 · DOI

  • Writing before the Conference meets at Geneva, it is therefore our earnest hope that the Indian Government through its representative will decide to co-operate heartily with the programme put forward by the Americans, namely, that no use of opium save the medical and scientific should be considered legitimate, and that production should be limited to the amount ascertained t o be sufficient for that use.

    INDIA AND OPIUM · 1925 · DOI

  • Despite millions of deaths occurring annually and triggering substantial economic activity across formal and informal sectors, the economic dimensions of mortality remain underexplored in Indian literature.

    Mortality and Markets: Sectoral Economic Contributions of Household Death-Related Activities in Urban India: A Multi-Sector Empirical Analysis · 2026 · DOI

  • hopes to play a more meaningful role in establishing and maintaining an Indo-Pacific order, it remains to be determined as to how it will deal with Delhi.

    Examining the systemic realities of India in the US-backed Indo-Pacific Strategy · 2023 · DOI

  • Purpose This research contributes to current debates on automation and the future of work, a much-hyped but under researched area, in emerging economies through a particular focus on India.

    Automation, AI and the Future of Work in India · 2021 · DOI

  • It is an open question whether or not the sharing economy model-utilizing unused for-profit private resources by sharing them for public use through a digital intermediary-could be adopted for public utility and service delivery in the developing world.

    Uber for Electricity: Application of Sharing Economy Model in the Electric Power Sector in India · 2021 · DOI

  • This essay thus concludes that the strategic goal of the Indo-Pacific regional construct is insufficiently supported by its economic contours at present.

    India’s Economic Relevance in the Indo-Pacific · 2020 · DOI

  • The institutional change literature has predominantly focused on successful changes and sparsely on failed changes, but the idea of institutional fields reverting to their pre-change or near pre-change state, after change attempts, remains underexplored.

    Why Do Institutions Revert? Institutional Elasticity and Petroleum Sector Reforms in India · 2020 · DOI

  • This period has received considerable attention in relation to the development of the British Empire, but little is known about how merchants and other commercial actors invested in and contributed to these organizations.

    The global interests of London's commercial community, 1599–1625: investment in the East India Company · 2018 · DOI

  • How are the contours and practices of the state changing under the regime of economicliberalization in India? To address these questions in the context of India, in this essay I turn to the relatively understudied state of Odisha.

    Democracy and the State in Globalizing India: A Case Study of Odisha · 2013 · DOI

  • Originality/value: The concept of Brahmanism in Indian employee relations is under-researched in comparison with other aspects of Indian culture and antipathy towards the concept as a source of resistance to the implementation of lean systems needs to be better understood.

    Toyotism and Brahminism · 2012 · DOI

  • In this context, the question of India’s willingness to give leadership to carry the rest of South Asia as the bridge that connects the region to East Asia needs to be examined.

    The Political Economy of Trade Integration in South Asia: The Role of India · 2010 · DOI

  • , would have played a very great role in determining the price curve of each individual commodity ; and in many cases such factors were either very significant or remain unknown to us.

    The Silver Currency Output of the Mughal Empire and Prices in India During the 16th and 17th Centuries · 1969 · DOI

  • Railways tapped only restricted portions of the country, and their impact on the economy was limited by the unwillingness to develop feeder lines.

    Towards a Reinterpretation of Nineteenth-Century Indian Economic History · 1968 · DOI

  • A typical statement from a recent official Indian study of managing agency reads: Little is known about the early twilight zone of the history of our industrial development in which the managing agency system and the joint stock companies played a great part.

    The Origin of the Managing Agency System in India · 1966 · DOI

  • The history and present position of the business combines controlled by members of the Nattukottai Chettiar community in southern India have not been elucidated so far.

    A NOTE ON THE “BUSINESS COMBINE’ IN INDIA — with Special Reference to the Nattukottai Chettiars*— · 1966 · DOI

  • The need for extending this scheme to more and more countries in Africa and also enlarging the scope of training of the Africans in India should be explored.

    India and Africa · 1963 · DOI

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29 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 1,489 Indian Economic and Social Development papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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