From http://www.ssrc.org/press/firstprize/ :
"I’m delighted with the choice of Dani Rodrik as the first recipient of the SSRC’s new Albert Hirschman Prize,” said Craig Calhoun, president of the SSRC. “Professor Rodrik’s work on development economics exemplifies the kind of social science values and engagements evident in Albert Hirschman’s work, as well as the kind of necessary knowledge the Social Science Research Council aims to bring to public affairs.”"
An excerpt from the Rodrik-Subramanian paper " From 'Hindu rate of groth' to productivity surge: The mystery of the Indian growth transition" (http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~drodrik/IndiapaperdraftMarch2.pdf):
"Our analysis focuses on the transition to high growth in the 1980s, and we have little to say about the 1991 reforms and the experience of the 1990s. We take the view that igniting growth and sustaining it are distinct challenges, requiring different sets of policies and approaches (Rodrik 2003, Hausmann et al. 2004). This paper is concerned exclusively with the challenge of igniting growth and the story of how India seems to have overcome it.
I. THE FACTS
A key fact that we establish at the outset of this paper is that the turnaround in this performance—the decisive break with the Hindu past—occurred around 1980 and not in the 1990s as most accounts have it. We are not the first to make this point: De Long (2003) and Williamson and Zagha (2002) have both emphasized that the approximate doubling of India’s growth rate took place a full decade before the 1991 reforms. Nonetheless, it is impossible to read the standard policy-oriented accounts and not leave with the impression that it is the reforms of the 1990s that have brought superlative economic performance to
India (Ahluwalia, 2002; Srinivasan and Tendulkar, 2003)."
T.N.Srinivasan's response to the above paper:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/staffp/2004/00-00/sriniv.pdf
One version of Ahluwalia's views is here: http://casi.ssc.upenn.edu/research/papers/Ahluwalia_2002.pdf
Dani Rodrik has recently started a blog: http://rodrik.typepad.com/
UPDATE: Rodrik-Subramanian reply to Srinivasan's comments here http://www.imf.org/External/Pubs/FT/staffp/2005/02/rodrik2.htm (coutesy of http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2005/09/hindu_growth_th.html). See also http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/09/rodrik_and_subr.html
