Market responsiveness of peasant cultivators: Some evidence from prewar India

This study attempts to analyse the responsiveness of Indian farmers to changes in profitability with reference to non‐food crops, such as groundnuts, cotton, jute and sugarcane, over the period 1900–39. Various types of adjustment and expectations models have been used. The generalized distributed lag models have been formulated and some special forms have been applied to study the behaviour of farmers. Both ordinary least‐squares and two‐stage‐least‐squares estimates have been carried out. In the distributed‐lag analysis, short‐run and long‐run price coefficients and elasticities have been computed and compared with some of the other studies on the subject. The emerging conclusion from this study is that farmer s seem to respond to changes in profitability, expansion of irrigation facilities, varietal improvements and qualitative factors in the case of all the crops.     

Capability Failure and Group Disparities : Some Evidence from India for the 1980s

This paper advances a particular measure of deprivation - called the Capability Failure Ratio (CFR) - on the dimensions of longevity, knowledge and income, and suggests how an (inequality-) 'adjusted' version of the CFR may be derived. These measurement concerns are explored in the context of relevant State-wise data for the Indian Union. The paper thus makes an attempt to enrich the analysis of human predicament by sensitising 'measures of central tendency' to distributional concerns.     

Women's Wellbeing and the Sex Ratio at Birth: Some Suggestive Evidence from India

A declining sex ratio (SR) for a population has generally been diagnosed as an indicator of worsening female advantage, while a declining sex ratio at birth (SRB) – such as in the context of the Indian population over the recent past – has been diagnosed as being caused largely by the phenomenon of sex-selective foeticide. In this article, we examine the merits of a less sinister hypothesis in terms of which a secular improvement in women's wellbeing has led to a sex-neutral reduction in the rate of foetal wastage, and through that route, to a reduction in the SRB (and therefore in the overall SR of the population). We seek support for this hypothesis by examining evidence from India. We also discuss the implications of this line of reasoning for women's wellbeing, development and the significance of a declining sex ratio.     

Growth in NICs in Asia: Some tests of new growth theory

New growth theory has revitalised the existing theory of long run growth by focusing on such determinants as investment in human capital, increasing returns to scale and the impact of openness in international trade. This article provides some empirical tests of this new growth theory in terms of the remarkable episodes of growth experienced by the NICs in the Asian Pacific Rim in general and by Korea in particular. The estimates appear to be strongly favourable to the basic premises of the new growth theory.     

Inflation and economic development in Latin America: Some new evidence

This article presents an evaluation of various relationships that explain shifts in economic structure. These are (1) inflation as measured by (a) the wholesale price index, and (b) sectoral price index; (2) changes in sectoral profits; and, (3) changes in alternate sectoral profits. Changes in sectoral profits (measured by sectoral price minus wholesale price) were more strongly correlated to changes in economic structure than either wholesale or sectoral price indices, while changes in economic structure are as expected when compared to changes in alternate sectoral profits in all but three of the years studied.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Gender Attitudes: Evidence from India

This paper examines the intergenerational transmission of gender attitudes in India, a setting with severe discrimination against women and girls. We use survey data on gender attitudes (specifically, about the appropriate roles and rights of women and girls) collected from nearly 5500 adolescents attending 314 schools in the state of Haryana, and their parents. We find that when a parent holds a more discriminatory attitude, his or her child is about 11 percentage points more likely to hold the view. We find that parents hold greater sway over students’ gender attitudes than their peers do, and that mothers influence children’s gender attitudes more than fathers. Parental attitudes influence child attitudes more in Scheduled Caste communities and student gender attitudes are positively correlated with behaviours such as interacting with children of the opposite gender.     

The impact of the financial sector on economic development: Some cross-section evidence

Conclusion This paper has attempted to analyze the effect of the development of the financial sector, as reflected by the extent of financial deepening, in the economic development of countries. The Theoretical framework integrating financial growth to real growth is basically an adaptation of the Gurley-Shaw theory of finance in the development context, but with emphasis placed upon the supply-leading role of the financial sector. The empirical results of this study although not conclusive, indicate that financial deepening leads to a higher rate of capital accumulation and a higher level of per capita income. The lack of definitiveness of our evidence in support of the financial theory of economic development is due to a lack of comparable data on financial institutions, other than banks, for the different countries. Thus, although our study lends support to the supply-leading thesis, further judgement of the thesis must await more detailed empirical analyses.     

Estimating the shadow price of foreign exchange: An illustration from India

Although there has been a rapid growth in the literature urging the use of shadow prices in cost‐benefit analysis, little attention has been devoted to the estimation of shadow prices or to the feasibility of alternative methodologies for estimating a particular shadow price. This paper is a modest contribution toward meeting this gap. By applying a variety of methodologies, a range of values is determined for the shadow price of foreign exchange for India. The paper also demonstrates a general approach to estimating shadow prices, which in turn emerges from an explicit consideration of the costs and expected benefits of the required research and analysis.     

Labour demand and Agroindustrial development: The evidence from Mexico

Agroindustrialisation, in contrast to assertions by Mexican policy‐makers, has had a negative employment‐generating effect in agriculture in the region known as El Bajío. The impact of widespread crop substitution and the wholesale transfer of technology promoted by transnational processing plants have both reduced the total labour employed and increased the instability of employment through heightened seasonality of labour demand. A decomposition analysis assesses the role played by various determinants of labour demand in the alteration of regional agricultural employment which has resulted from agro‐industrialisation.     

Using Crowd-Sourced Data to Study Public Services: Lessons from Urban India

As cities throughout the developing world grow, they often expand more quickly than the infrastructure and service delivery networks that provide residents with basic necessities such as water and public safety. Why do some cities deliver more effective infrastructure and services in the face of rapid growth than others? Why do some households and communities secure better services than others? Answering these questions requires studying the large, politicized bureaucracies charged with providing urban services, especially the relationships between frontline workers, agency managers, and citizens in informal settlements. Researchers investigating public service delivery in cities of the Global South, however, have faced acute data scarcity when addressing these themes. The recent emergence of crowd-sourced data offers researchers new means of addressing such questions. In this paper, we draw on our own research on the politics of urban water delivery in India to highlight new types of analysis that are possible using crowd-sourced data and propose solutions to common pitfalls associated with analyzing it. These insights should be of use for researchers working on a broad range of topics in comparative politics where crowd-sourced data could provide leverage, such as protest politics, conflict processes, public opinion, and law and order.     

Revolution without regime change: The evidence from the post-Euromaidan Ukraine

What effects does a revolution have on the stability or change of a hybrid regime? Has the Ukraine's regime changed since the 2014 revolution? To answer these questions I examine the changes in formal and informal institutions and the quantitative and qualitative composition of elites after the change of power in Ukraine in 2014. I argue that despite greater than in the post-orange period quantitative renewal of elites, qualitative change has not occurred. Meanwhile, the old operational code, or modus operandi, of elites' political culture, composed of clientelism, secretive deals and quota based nominations to government positions continues to operate. The lack of elites' renewal and the dominance of informal rules over formal procedures – two factors that keep the institutional core of Ukraine's hybrid regime unchanged.     

Land Reforms,Poverty Reduction,and Economic Growth: Evidence from India

Abstract

Recognition of the importance of institutions that provide security of property rights and relatively equal access to economic resources to a broad cross-section of society has renewed interest in the potential of asset redistribution, including land reforms. Empirical analysis of the impact of such policies is, however, scant and often contradictory. We use panel household data from India, together with state-level variation in the land reform implementation, to address some of the deficiencies of earlier studies. Results suggest that land reform had a significant and positive impact on income growth and accumulation of human and physical capital. Policy implications are drawn, especially from the fact that the observed impact of land reform seems to have declined over time.