Both China and India have made remarkable economic progress in the last quarter
century—China more than India—but both have severe structural
and institutional problems that will hobble them for many years to come. In this
article, after a comparative study of the two economies in terms of broad
development indicators, we explore some deeper social and historical issues that
underlie their differential ability to resolve collective action problems in
long-term investment and to manage political conflicts, which go beyond the usual
simple aggregative comparisons of an authoritarian and a democratic political regime.
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