332 Book Reviews

REGULATION AND DEVELOPMENT: INDIA’S POLICY EXPERIENCE OF CONTROLS OVER INDUSTRY Sharad S. Marathe Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1986 328 pp.

In the introduction the author states the aim of the book is to trace the ‘evolution of national thinking on major issues of industrial policy’. The author also makes a number of statements concerning what the book is not about; i.e. it is not intended to be a comprehensive and fully documented review of the evolution of industrial policy and of the concomitant procedural changes. I had great difficulty in reconciling these points on reading the book, and was convinced that the latter was merely a justification for the inadequacies of the comprehensiveness of the former.

I found the study disappointing, both as far as presentation and content were concerned. In most places the text is essentially descriptive. A few tables summarizing some of the descriptive material (there is only one in the whole text) would help the reader appreciate the overall framework of the study. It lacks the analysis necessary to attract the odd industrialists who might read it. There is a tendency to digress from the main point under discussion, a feature particularly noticeable in chapter 10. The few chapters that do offer some analysis, (p. 164 onwards) besides being brief, add little to our knowledge of industrialization in India and make scant reference to other published work in the area.

Throughout the book the author presents a list of industrial instruments and controls, and attempts to describe their main characteristics. The author does justifiably show the degree to which industrial regulation in practice often exceeded the intentions of legislation, but there is little evidence of analysis that attempts to uncover the real interests that have influenced their formulation and development. Although the author indicates the complexity of some issues, the reader is left with large gaps in understanding the interrelationships between Indian politics and economics that underlie their development.

Both in the introduction and the concluding chapter the author recommends that a substantial change in the direction of policy is required but provides little, even if speculative, on the consequences and probability of real implementation.

Overall the book is useful for those scholars specializing in Indian industrialization, but has little general appeal.

PAUL COOK Institute for Development Policy and Management

University of Manchester

GROWTH AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN INDIA R. M. Sundrum Sage Publications, London, 1987, 356 pp.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed reading this macroeconomics text. From the distant perspective of Canberra, Professor Sundrum has presented a full and remarkably readable book on developments in the Indian economy since Independence, and in the main areas of policy. Both as a clear description of what occurred in macro-terms, and as an analysis of the main policy areas, the book provides a valuable review and description of the national situation. This is done in such a clear, comprehensive way that teachers of the macroeconomics of development will wish to use the book as a model of the subject, as well as a first-class illustration of analytical scope and one nation’s experience.

The book is in two parts. The first, longer, section contains the detailed analysis of the performance of the Indian economy. Drawing on the rich stock of data that characterizes India, Sundrum gives a model presentation of how such analyses may be conducted. Through a huge compilation of basic and processed data, 108 tables are contained in 169 pages. The language and techniques used are accessible to the non-specialist, and the