india's booming service sector

Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta look at the historical roots of India’s booming service economy. “Our research demonstrates that India’s recent service-led development has deep historical roots. During the colonial period, India’s comparative productivity performance was already better in services than in industry or agriculture. This emphasis on services is in line with much recent research on long-run growth among the developed economies, which finds services playing a key role in comparative economic performance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as well as during more recent times.”