Between 2015 and 2050, India's working-age population is projected to expand by 33% (~285 million people) – in stark contrast to the grim demographic trends facing China and most developed economies, which will struggle to support ballooning numbers of retirees even as their labor forces shrink.

For more on this topic, check out the Demographics dispatch.

Since 1991, India’s per capita income has grown more than three times faster than in the decades that preceded liberalization.  Refuting the notion of a so-called “Hindu rate of growth”, increases in the country’s per capita income have surpassed global per capita GDP growth by a large and expanding margin, outpacing the rest of the world during booms as well as in the midst of global downturns.

For more on this topic, check out the India since 1991: tiger uncaged dispatch.

Since India liberalized its economy in 1991, its exports have grown by a factor of twenty – fully reversing the decline in the country’s share of world exports between independence (1947) and 1991.

For more on this topic, check out the India since 1991: tiger uncaged dispatch.

​Note:  This is part two of a two-part series on the roots and impact of India’s 1991 crisis.  Part one is here.

Today, two-thirds of Indians still live in rural areas – making the country roughly as urbanized as China in 1995, South Korea in 1965, Japan in 1935, Europe in 1905, or America in 1885.  However, India's rural-to-urban migration is gathering pace.  Over the next two decades, its urban areas are forecast to gain a New York City's worth of new residents every ten months – laying the groundwork for an extended period of elevated economic growth.

Prior to reforms sparked by India's 1991 balance of payments crisis, establishment economists coined the belittling term “Hindu rate of growth” – implicitly attributing the country's lackluster economic performance to its cultural and religious traditions.  Of course, India’s post-1991 economic record makes clear that the issue was never a lack of talent, skill, or entrepreneurial dynamism.

For more on this topic, check out the India before 1991: tiger caged dispatch.