The term Mumbai Consensus was first mentioned by Dr. Lawrence Summers, Chief Economic Advisor to US President Obama, in June 2010. During his October 2010 visit to India, Summers interacted with Gateway House members at a private meeting. The Mumbai Consensus, he said, is a “third way not based on ideas of laissez-faire capitalism that have proven obsolete or ideas of authoritarian capitalism that ultimately will prove not to be enduringly successful. Instead, a Mumbai Consensus based on the idea of a democratic developmental state, driven not by a mercantilist emphasis on exports, but a people-centered emphasis on growing levels of consumptions and a widening middle class.”
Can India’s economics indeed be the middle path between the two extreme capitalisms of today?
Two noted economists and experts on the development of India and China, Yasheng Huang, Professor of International Management, MIT Sloan School of Management, and Surjit S. Bhalla, Managing Director, Oxus Research and Investments, discussed the topic with members of Gateway House.