Letters: Avoiding the extremes

This refers to Arvind Subramanian’s article “Which nations failed?” (November 13). The writer has faulted the authors of Why Nations Fail for the inability of the latter’s analysis to account for the case of India and China. Referring to a graph, Prof Subramanian has noted that both India and China would need to undergo dramatic transformations – which seem unlikely – to hew to the WNF remit. However, the four scenarios painted by him are incomplete. They are limited to a vertical/horizontal movement of the India and China points towards the WNF-predicted straight line on the graph. There is another possibility. If the two points corresponding to India and China were to move directly towards the straight line, they would both be close to the 8.5 figure for log per capita growth, but without less dramatic changes in the countries’ political and social set-ups. Of course, this is merely graphical jugglery. Real change will involve several other variables.

Vikram Johri  Mumbai

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