Studies in Indian urban development

The chapters in this book report research sponsored by the World Bank on urban development in India. Their purpose is to provide a broad framework of historical, international, and regional findings within which a wide range of issues related to Indian urbanization can be studied. The core of the report is organized in eight chapters. Chapter one provides an introduction to the Indian economy. It traces the progress of India's economic growth during the twentieth century and presents a brief description of the government's institutional framework for economic planning. Chapter two examines the relation between urbanization and economic development on a worldwide basis. Chapter three, shifts from worldwide comparisons to comparisons within India at various times in its history. Chapter four presents a study of Indian city sizes and city growth. In chapter five, the focus narrows to the state of Madhya Pradesh, where the effects on migration and population growth of government-provided services and of sectoral sizes can be measured. In chapter six, the report shows the effects of city size on total factor productivity in manufacturing. This study confirms for India the findings of related studies in other countries that total factor productivity increases with city size. In two places, the discussions naturally extend to a consideration of the effects of certain actions of the Indian government: chapter seven examines government attempts to influence the size and the growth rates of India's largest cities, and finally, chapter eight takes a look at government attempts to alter the personal income distribution.