China and India : reforms and the response : how differently have the economies behaved

The relative performance of China and India is compared using two different methods and they provide a very different picture of their relative performance. We compare the average absolute values of indictors for the decade of the 1980s, 1990s and the 2000s. We use indicators such as the current account balance (CAB), exports of goods and services (XGS), foreign direct investment inflow (FDI), gross domestic savings, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), aid, private capital inflows (PrK) and workers’ remittances, all as a percentage of GDP. We also look at the growth rate of per capita GDP, exports of goods and services and of gross fixed capital formation. Using a two tailed- test we find that China does better than India for most of these indicators. For instance, China has a higher growth rate of per capita income, XGS and GFCF as also a higher share of XGS, GFCF etc in GDP than does India. We also find that China usually has a lower CV, namely a more stable performance. But over the three decades the CV falls in India so it is approaching that in China, namely the two economies are becoming more similar