Will Services be the New Engine of Economic Growth in India?

This paper revisits the role of manufacturing and services in economic development in the light of the following new facts: (a) a faster growth of services than that of manufacturing in many developing countries (DCs). (b) The emergence of “de-industrialisation” in several DCs at low levels of per capita income. (c) Jobless growth in the formal sector even in fast growing countries such as India and (d) a large expansion of the informal sector in both fast growing and slow growing DCs. Although the paper examines these phenomena in the specific case of the Indian economy, the analysis has much wider application, both for economic policy and for theories of growth and structural change.