This book examines various facets of the development process such as aid, poverty, caste networks, corruption, and judicial activism. It explores the efficiency of and distributional issues related to agriculture, and the roles of macro models and financial markets, with a special emphasis on bubbles, liquidity traps and experimental markets. The importance of finite changes in trade and development, as well as that of information technology and issues related to energy and ecosystems, including sustainability and vulnerability, are analyzed. The book presents papers that were commissioned for the Silver Jubilee celebrations at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR). The individual contributions address related development problems, ensuring a homogeneous reading experience and providing a thorough synthesis and understanding of the authors' research areas. The reader will be introduced to various aspects of development thought by leading and contemporary researchers. As such, the book represents an important addition to the literature on economic thought by leading scholars, and will be of great value to graduate students and researchers in the fields of development studies, political economy and economics in general. CONTENTS 1. Introduction to Development in India: Micro and Macro Perspectives / P.G. Babu and S. Mahendra Dev Part I Formal and Informal Institutions 2. Caste Networks in the Modern Indian Economy / Kaivan Munshi 3. Evolution of Judicial Activism: The Supreme Court of India / T.N. Srinivasan 4. Corruption: Supply-Side and Demand-Side Solutions / Avinash K. Dixit Part II Aid and Poverty 5. Can a Country Be a Donor and a Recipient of Aid? / Ravi Kanbur 6. Why is Poverty Declining so Slowly in India? / Ashok Kotwal and Arka Roy Chaudhuri Part III Indian Agriculture: Growth and Distribution 7. Agriculture and Structural Transformation 19602040: Implications for Double-Digit Inclusive Growth / Kirit S. Parikh, Hans P. Binswanger-Mkhize and Probal P. Ghosh 8. Incremental Reforms in Food Policy: What Are the Possibilities? / Bharat Ramaswami and Milind Murugkar Part IV Financial Markets and Macro Economy 9. A Model of Bubbles and Crashes / Dilip Abreu 10. Experimental Exploration into Macro Economics / Shyam Sunder 11. Does the Tail Wag the Dog? The Effect of Credit Default Swaps on Credit Risk / Marti G. Subrahmanyam, Dragon Yongjun Tang and Sarah Qian Wang 12. Financial Crisis and Liquidity Trap Some Theoretical and Policy Perspectives / Mihir Rakshit Part V Technological Change, Trade and Development 13. Finite ChangeImplication for Trade Theory, Policy and Development / Sugata Marjit and Biswajit Mandal 14. Information Technology and Its Role in India's Economic Development: A Review / Nirvikar Singh Part VI Ecosystems and Energy 15. Value of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in South Asia and India: Past, Present and Future / Anil Markandya 16. Climate Resilient Cities: Vulnerability Profiling of Twenty Indian Cities / Jyoti Parikh, Geeta Sandal and Priyank Jindal 17. Challenges for Sustainable Energy Development in India / Dilip R. Ahuja About the Editor: S. Mahendra Dev is Director, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai, India. After obtaining his Ph.D. from Delhi School of Economics (New Delhi, India), he did his post-doctoral research at Yale University, USA. He is also the Chair of the Committee on Terms of Trade on Agriculture constituted by the Indian Ministry of Agriculture. He previously chaired the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices at the Ministry of Agriculture, and served as Director of the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS) in Hyderabad. His research interests include development economics, indian economy, macro policies, inclusive growth, agricultural policies, poverty and inequality, and rural development. P.G. Babu is Professor at IGIDR, Mumbai coordinator of the Erasmus Mundus European Graduate Programs in Law and Economics, and Managing Editor of Journal of Quantitative Economics, official journal of The Indian Econometric Society (TIES) published by Springer. He has held visiting professorships at the Universities of Aix-Marseille, Bayreuth (as Adam Smith Chair Guest Professor of Philosophy and Economics), Hamburg, IIM Ahmedabad, Madras School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Warsaw School of Economics. He obtained his Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. His research interests include microeconomics and game theory with interdisciplinary applications to environment, law, philosophy and politics.