ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the traditional debates on regional economic development models. It focuses on the key debates on the impact of economic liberalisation on convergence or divergence processes in India. The chapter discusses the key conceptual debates on regional convergence or divergence as a way of assessing agriculture development. Traditional regional economic development models such as Rostow’s stages of growth, input-output models, growth poles and core-periphery have investigated the regional economic growth dynamics. From a policy perspective, it is important to investigate whether ‘an uneven distribution of agriculture growth and productivity is undesirable’, or whether ‘there should be policy intervention to mitigate the increasing spatial disparity in growth patterns’. In a globalised economic world, the economic growth of the under-developed countries has been relatively higher than developed countries. These two ends of the spectrum are transitioning through different changes of economic development, thus they have different growth potential and growth trajectories.
