随着印度迈入独立后的第64个年头，其经济动态呈现出自相矛盾的景象。从衡量市场亲善程度的大多数指标来看，印度经济落后于拉美甚至撒哈拉以南的非洲地区。与其它大多数国家相比，印度经济对待贸易和外国资本仍更为封闭；仍受制于对经济活动的广泛限制（如繁琐的劳工法），也仍然掌握在庞大的公共部门手中。简言之，印度经济应该以每年5%、而不是8.5%的速度增长。
长期增长有赖于为之提供支持的公共机构的质量。诚然，从监管角度看，今天印度的环境已不再像1991年改革开放之前那样恶劣。一些机构运作得相当不错，例如，那些主持选举、维护财政稳定以及监管电信行业的机构。但除了这些例外，整个政府表现软弱，内讧不断。印度经济实现了如此惊人的增长，政策改革实在不应贪天之功。
这个问题的部分原因在于，印度政治越来越入罪化。国家政令在近四分之一的领土上无法施行——其中大部分地方饱受着叛乱的折磨。腐败现象十分普遍。此外，尽管印度的高增长本应带来低负债，但财政上的民粹主义做法，使得印度公共财政丝毫不比那些债台高筑的工业国家更稳固。
正由于这种危机，英联邦运动会(Commonwealth Games)缩减规模、甚至索性取消的可能性越来越大——印度本指望借此机会，庆祝一个崭新印度的崛起。包括体育场馆在内的新设施仍未竣工。成本超支惊人，贪污现象猖獗。这与中国2008年奥运会形成了鲜明对比，也充分暴露了印度政府治理上的核心缺陷。
这种缺陷是形势逐步恶化（在政治领域表现得最为明显）以及对政府要求不断提高的结果。但这不禁让人迷惑：印度为何还能以如此之快的速度增长？通常的解释都着重强调精英教育和充满活力的信息科技行业。这些因素在增长启动初期起到了重要作用，但它们的规模太小、产生的益处也十分有限，不足以维持一个如此规模经济体的增长。真正的缘由或许是，尽管政策制定者们在启动增长方面的贡献可忽略不计，但增长本身已成为了变革的动力，正促成进一步的增长。
这种动力通过三条渠道起作用。首先，30年的增长扩大了企业家群体，并让追求财富成为值得尊敬的事情。用政治学家德韦什•卡普尔(Devesh Kapur)的话讲，现在印度是一个全新的国家，到处是热衷于赚钱的人，不断地寻找经济机遇——包括设法绕开繁冗的规定——而这进而会让增长引擎继续轰鸣。
第二条渠道，需求增长使私人部门得以取代公共部门。不妨以教育为例。长期以来，发展经济学家一直抱怨印度政府未能提供好学校。但经济增长让情况发生了明显变化，主要是因为经济增长提高了教育的回报率，由此提升了对教育的需求。在印度农村地区，由于公立学校里教师经常缺勤，私立学校如雨后春笋般冒出来，再就是由于高等教育机构管理上一团糟，城市中的企业纷纷成立培训中心，以培养员工技能。
最后，印度国内各邦之间的竞争也有所帮助。为印度大众市场生产廉价车的标志性尝试——Nano汽车——就是一个很好的例子。地方政府阻止该车制造商塔塔集团(Tata)在西孟加拉邦设厂。搁在以往的印度，这个项目也就此被扼杀。但现在，被视为经济治理罕见典范的古吉拉特邦已批准了该项目。
即使只有几个古吉拉特这样的邦，也应该足以逐渐迫使其它邦政府改变政策，而强劲的增长也会迫使更多的邦做出反应——即使动作力度不大，且时断时续。一个功能并未完全失灵的政府，结合新的毫无约束的赚钱欲望，意味着印度的经济希望不太可能破灭。但在开启或刺激更大范围的经济变革方面，印度政府很难走在经济趋势之前。而这种瓶颈将让中国式的增长速度显得不可思议。
本文作者为美国彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)和全球发展中心(Center for Global Development)高级研究员
译者/陈云飞
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001034201
As India enters its 64th year since independence, its economic dynamism presents a paradox. On most measures of market friendliness, it lags behind Latin America, and even sub-Saharan Africa. It is still more closed to trade and foreign capital than most other countries; still hampered by extensive controls on economic activity, including onerous labour laws; and still dominated by a large public sector. In short, it should be growing at 5 per cent, not 8½ per cent, a year.
Long-run growth depends on the quality of supporting public institutions. True, the India of today is less of a regulatory nightmare than before the opening-up in 1991. Some institutions – those that hold elections, preserve financial stability and regulate telecommunications, for example – have worked well. But these exceptions apart, the state is weak and fraying. Policy reforms do not deserve the spectacular acceleration in growth that the economy has delivered.
Part of the problem is that Indian politics is getting progressively criminalised. The writ of the state does not run in nearly a quarter of its territory, with much of that area afflicted by violent insurrections. Corruption is endemic. And while India's high growth should have led to low debt, fiscal populism has ensured that India's public finances are almost as wobbly as those in the debt-addled industrial countries.
Such is the crisis it seems increasingly possible the Commonwealth games – supposedly a cause for celebrating the rise of a new India – will be scaled down or not held at all. New facilities, including stadiums, remain unfinished. Cost over-runs are astronomical and graft rampant. The obvious contrast with China's 2009 Olympics will illustrate all too starkly the core weakness of Indian governance.
This weakness is the result of a mix of both gradual deterioration over time (most obviously in the political arena) with growing demands on the state. But it leaves a puzzle: why is India growing so quickly? Conventional explanations focus on elite education and a dynamic information technology sector. These have played an important role in kick-starting growth but are too small in size and too narrow in the benefits they generate to sustain growth in such a large economy. The real explanation may be that, while policymakers have done the minimum to start growth, growth itself is now the driver of change and is begetting more growth.
This dynamic works through three channels. First, growth for three decades has widened entrepreneurship, and made the pursuit of money-making respectable. India, in the words of political scientist Devesh Kapur, is now a new nation of hustlers, constantly searching for economic opportunities – including ways of circumventing onerous rules – that, in turn, keep the growth engine purring along.
The second route comes as rising demand allows the private to replace the public sector. Consider education. Development economists have long bemoaned the Indian government's failure to supply good schools. But growth has changed the picture dramatically, largely because it has increased the returns from, and hence the demand for, education. Just look at private schools mushrooming in rural India because of teacher absenteeism in public schools or companies creating training centres to build skills in the cities because institutions of higher education are in shambles.
Finally, competition between India's states has also helped. The Nano, an iconic attempt to produce a reasonably priced car for India's mass market, is a good example. Regulations stopped its manufacturer, the Tata group, starting a factory in West Bengal. In the India of old, this would have killed the project. But now the state of Gujarat, which is a rare model of good economic governance, has taken the project instead.
Even just a few Gujarats should be enough gradually to force other state governments to change policies, while strong growth will also force the wider state to respond – even if weakly and intermittently. A not totally dysfunctional state combined with a new and no-holds-barred spirit of hustling, mean India's economic hopes are unlikely to come unstuck. Yet the Indian state will seldom be ahead of the curve in initiating or galvanising wider economic change. And that bottleneck will make Chinese-type growth rates elusive.
The writer is a senior fellow jointly at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Center for Global Development in Washington DC
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