Books for Paper-I

Micro - Microeconomics by Koutsoyiannis; Microeconomics by Pyndick and

Rubinfeld
Macro - Macroeconomics by Richard Froyen/ Shapiro/ Dornbusch and fischer
Monetary Economics - Macroeconomics by Richard Froyen and Prof Lalwani's
notes/ Jhingan
Public Finance - Didnt follow any specific text. Relied on the things I had learnt
during my graduation and Prof. Lalwani's Notes
International Economics Salvatore/ Krugman and Obstfeld/ M L Jhingan
Growth and Development - Growth and Development by AP Thirlwall; Economic
Development by Todaro and Smith/ Jhingan

I tried to use only the standard texts recommended at good universities around the
world. I think this is very essential to get the concepts right. I havnt seen the
traditionally recommended books for CSE Econ like Jhingan, Gupta etc; so cannot
comment whether those books should be used or not. But my advice would be, read
good standard and universally appreciated text as far as possible. (But I must also add
here that I was used to reading all the text I have mentioned in 'books referred' right
from my undergraduate days. So I had a bias towards reading these texts.)
I finished the syllabus once before Union Public Service Commission Preliminary
Examination. But as I have said above I wasnt very confident about my preparation.
Hence I took at coaching from Prof Lalwani. I used to revise class notes almost
everyday and devoted a lot of time to understanding each concept that I thought was
important.
Answer Writing:
Writing practice is very essential for Economics because one has to train oneself to
speak in the language of graphs. I feel that it is important that as far as possible things
are explained through a graph in paper 1. Making good and accurate graphs requires a
lot of practice. So I devoted a lot of time in mastering drawing the graphs. Once a
graph is drawn the answer automatically flows as an explanation of the graph.
I used to write answers frequently and give it to Prof Lalwani to review it critically.
In my CSE paper, I tried to include at least one graph in every answer except where it
was absolutely impossible to do so.
Books for Paper-II

Indian Economy Since Independence by Uma Kapila

Indian Economy: Economic Survey -last two years
Oxford Handbook on Indian Economy
Class notes of Prof. Lalwani
Relevant articles in Economic and Political Weekly including articles from the
archive relating to some important issues like the poverty debate

Opinion articles on Indian Economy from sources like Economic Times, Live
Mint and Business Line, Economic Survey
Budget speech and budget documents
RBI's handbook on statistics for various data
Speeches of RBI governor and deputy governors available on RBI's website
Indian Economy: latest two Monetary & Credit Policy (mid term and annual).
Latest data about CRR, SLR and Repos rate should be known
Different reports like Human Development Report, World Development Reports
(available on net) and many other good reports.

Strategy for PAPER-II

I had tried reading Indian Economy by Dutt & Sundaram initially. I feel that it is
an eminently unreadable book. It is very poorly edited and the data are not
updated even in the latest editions. It is very poor source of preparation if you are
aiming at getting high marks in paper 2. But I admit that at times some topics may
not be found elsewhere other than this book. So you may have to go through the
frustration of reading some part of this book. I never referred to Mishra & Puri's
Indian Economy, so cannot comment about that book.
The strategy for paper 2 was to first read up on each topic mentioned in the
syllabus from different sources (mostly web sources). Then I prepared notes on
each of these topics and did a critical analysis of each of these topics so that I
understand them better. I supplemented my understanding with research papers in
EPW and editorials in newspapers.
I had done all this before writing Union Public Service Commission Preliminary
Examination. After Union Public Service Commission Preliminary Examination I
devoted most of my time to understanding paper 1 better. For paper 2 I read
Lalwani sir's notes.
Answer Writing:
Never did any answer writing preparation for paper 2 because it is mostly about
expressing one's opinions on issues and I was confident about being able to do
that well.
My advice to aspirants with Econ as an option:
1. Try to read from good text
2. Answer writing practice an absolute must for paper 1. I cannot emphasize this
fact more. The more you practice, the better you will score.
3. For paper 2 do not stick to any one text. Try to read up as different sources till
you are able to critically analyze the issue from different angles.