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Before the late 1980s the economic growth rate of independent India looks ordinary: India's rate of growth of output per worker is square in the middle of the world's distribution, and the values of its proximate determinants of growth are ordinary too. This puts a bound on the growth-retarding effects of the" license raj" generated by prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's attraction to Fabian socialism and central planning.

Since the late 1980s India does not look ordinary at all. It has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, with a doubling time for average GDP per capita of only sixteen years. Conventional wisdom traces the growth acceleration neoliberal economic reforms implemented under the government of Narasimha Rao. Yet the timing of the growth acceleration suggests an earlier start for the current Indian boom under the government of Rajiv Gandhi.