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For countries like India, that
have experienced a dramatic policy shift from the inward-looking
protectionist regimes of yesteryear, globalisation has had a
significant, if not fundamental, impact on the structure,
pattern and growth of industry.
This has also had
secondary impact on the environment and energy demand. While
hardcore proponents of globalisation may argue (often with
serious justification) that Indian policy makers have largely
toyed with the idea of globalisation and not really made any
serious effort to efficiently put the appropriate polices into
practice, very few will dispute that the shift in policy is
easily perceptible. Seen from this angle, this volume of 12
articles explores the effects of globalisation on industrial
organisation and finance, energy demand and the environment.
The present volume
is the third in the series that has emerged out of the annual
conferences on contemporary issues in development economics that
have been organised by Jadavpur University in the past decade.
The principal theme that runs through these papers is the impact
of the growth, in a particular growth induced by liberalisation,
of economy on the domestic industry and environment.
One of the
principal arguments in favour of globalisation rests on the view
that apart from easing the supply-side bottlenecks,
globalisation also helps to provide external market for the
demand-constrained industry in less-developed countries through
an export-led growth strategy. However, a complete dependence on
this export-led growth strategy has been criticised by both
proponents and critics of globalisation for its disproportionate
emphasis on foreign markets and the neglect of the potential
internal markets as a means to solve the problems of excess
capacity and unemployment. Against this background, several
articles in this volume have genuinely tried to identify the
possibilities of domestic demand generation.
It is also
important to distinguish between the two ways in which
environmental damages occur as a consequence of economic
activities. First, environmental degradation may be caused by
production activity. Second, it can occur through consumption of
goods — air pollution by vehicles is one example. Implications
of environmental standards have often been viewed as non-tariff
barriers imposed by developed countries to restrict exports by
less-developed countries (LDCs). From the LDCs’ point of view,
this usually leads to a fall in domestic employment and foreign
exchange earnings. Sanyal and Acharyya in their paper question
this plausible conjecture and show that under reasonable
conditions, the opposite is true.
In the last paper
of the volume, Sarmila Banerji and Ramesh Chandna Das attempt to
isolate and quantify the contribution of vehicular pollution to
the degradation of Kolkata’s air quality. Their main
contribution, however, is to the development of an alternative
air pollution index and a measure of air pollution load.
Measures of this type are important, as they allow more precise
targeting of pollution reduction policies.
To summarise, some
of the essays are essentially theoretical, others are empirical
studies based on Indian data. Even where the approach is
theoretical in nature, the issues addressed and the axiomatic
structures are grounded in the experience of developing
countries.
This volume will
be of particular relevance for Indian scholars and policy
makers.
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FROM
everyday considerations, such as which restaurant to dine in
or which store to shop at, to more substantial concerns, such
as which technology to adopt or which research project to
undertake, decision-making is susceptible to social influences
which may lead individuals to do what others are doing,
irrespective of their own private experiences or preferences.
This type of behaviour among individuals is commonly known as
herd mentality.
