The United Nations Human Development Index has India at 0.431 in 1980, 0.470 in 1985, 0.509 in 1990, and 0.563 in 1998. India's decade-and-a-half of semi-neoliberalism seem to have seen a lot of economic growth along with some increases in education and some reductions in infant mortality.
Brad de Long
-So, a decade of neoliberalism didn´t change too much the speed -of HDI improvement (0,708 in the 80´s vs. 0,594 from 1990 to -1998). As the economic growth was higher in the last decade we -can wonder that the other indexes improved slowly than before. -And this data doesn´t include Ginni Index and absolute poverty -Inex. I will take a look at them.
It seems to me very hard indeed to argue that it would have been better had it continued under the unreformed Nehru dynasty "license raj"--almost as hard as to argue that Deng Xiaoping's decollectivization of agriculture was a mistake.
Brad DeLong
-The recent data suggesting an increase in infant mortality in China, -and the news on the collapse of the medical care in rural areas -point to the fact that decollectivization was not this fantastic -miracle. In fact, if you point to life expectancy, ilitteracy and -infant mortality, Maoist China did better than post reform China -(except, of course, from 1958-61). This of course, has to do with -collectivization, which created a relatively large welfare net in -the countryside. On the other hand, the decollectivization improved -the agricultural productivity. Here is an interesting chart of -per capita agricultural output in China. Look at the chart and you -will reach the following conclusions. 1-The collectivized agriculture in China did much better than the non collectivized agriculture in India 2-The decollectivization led to a dramatic improvement in livestock production, a less impressive improvement in other crops production, but it led to STAGNATION of cereals production. http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/data/diet/prod_1.htm