Articles by Errol D' Souza

For 40 years, India's agricultural growth rate has averaged less than one-third of the government's modest target of 4%. The sector's performance has been about the same before and after the economic reforms in the early 1990s. The reforms that brought a dramatic acceleration of growth in urban sectors have essentially had no effect on agriculture. Slow agricultural growth has had ill-effects on food security, food price inflation and poverty reduction because of the inadequate level and composition of public expenditure. Agricultural education, research, extension and a wide range of ancillary public institutions have also suffered. Agricultural growth always demands massive public goods provision and that in turn requires a radical reorientation of central, state and district government activities. This paper advocates a new integrated, technology-led strategy to pull out of, what looks like, a vicious circle that agriculture is now caught in.

The fiscal deficit is being contained by a decrease in interest payments and capital expenditures, along with a secular rise in direct taxes. However, the reduction in capital expenditures, mainly in infrastructure, is growth constraining. This article argues that infrastructure expenditures have a propensity to increase inequality and this turns the attention of government towards redistribution, which, in turn, increases transfer payments and squeezes out capital expenditures. Sorting out governance issues associated with infrastructure spending is essential to making budgetary finances more growth-oriented.

The orientation of fiscal policy should be on fiscal correction and long-term issues. Aggregate demand management is then the exclusive domain of monetary policy which by initiating a softer interest rate regime can also encourage capital inflows.

The politicisation of higher education, corruption in faculty hiring and enrolment, and student political unrest are being addressed to a certain extent currently. Much less attention has been paid to the recruitment and retention of high quality faculty and the incentive structures that reward merit in academia. This article focuses on the organisational architecture of higher education institutions and uses the framework that describes it to make comments on academic contracts.

The lifetime concerns of individuals, though a key focus of the Budget for 2003-04, are nevertheless addressed in such a way that human capital - the engine of growth - will not be accumulated in an equitable or efficient manner.