ABSTRACT
This chapter revisits the South Asian growth experience by reviewing the long-term economic growth patterns of the region as a whole as well as each of the regional economies individually from 1960 to 2020 in a comparative framework using ‘GDP growth per capita at constant price’ as the indicator of growth extracted from the World Development Indicators. The objective is to explore the patterns of growth acceleration that occurred in these economies and analyse whether they have been rapid and sustained for a certain period of time. The analysis shows that moderately paced growth accelerations have occurred in the post-1990 period in five out of eight regional economies, but they are not sustained for a sufficiently long time period pulling down the average economic growth of the region. The high average regional growth rates that have attracted global attention are due to low base and average effects. It is also observed that growth accelerations are not always associated with economic liberalisation. There can be the outcome of external shocks, political dynamics and development strategies. The analysis is based on simple statistical tools including the structural break analysis.
