Green Revolution And After: The 'North Arcot Papers' And Long Term Studies Of The Political Economy Of Rural Development in South India

This working paper has two objectives. The first is to summarise the results of rounds of research from 1973 onwards on the green revolution in South India. It provides background both to the research reported in Harriss-White, Janakarajan et al, 2004, 'Rural India facing the 21st century' (London, Anthem) and to several research projects currently being conducted by masters and doctoral students in QEH. The second objective is to reflect on the achievements and problems of those long term villages studies which are not based on panel data - at a time when village studies have been neglected and are being revived once more.

The Political Competition-Economic Performance Puzzle: Evidence from the OECD Countries and the Italian Regions

Empirical tests of the theories on the relationship between political competition and economic performance generate a puzzle: data tend to support the theory at the lower levels of government, but not in panels of countries. We argue that the larger set of policy instruments reduces the tax price of votes at the national level, increasing the incentives to use distortionary redistributive policies to win contested elections. Moreover, constitutions reserve competencies with a high ideological potential to the national government, reducing swing voters’ responsiveness to the economic performance of the central government. We thus expect political competition to produce efficiency-oriented policies at the sub-national level compared to the national one. We test this hypothesis on a panel of 24 OECD countries over 1974-2000 and a panel of 15 Italian regions over 1984-2000 and find support for our predictions.political competition, growth, redistribution, national and regional government

The Political Economy of Poverty Reduction Policies in Ethiopia

Poverty reduction strategies and policies have gained considerable popularity in recent policy discourse and international economic relations. These policies and strategies are framed in the context of the Millennium Development Goals that set specific quantitative targets to be achieved within a specified time framework. The goals specify the targets and require countries to design national poverty reduction strategies and achieve them with a generous financial assistance from the international community. However, the domestic political economic forces remain to shape the extent and effectiveness of such strategies in addressing and reducing the extent and depth of poverty in the reforming countries. This paper develops a political economy perspective of adopting and pursuing sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction path with particular reference to the Ethiopian situation. It addresses the policies, assesses the experience and identifies the impediments to poverty reduction in Ethiopia and explores the prospects for sustained improvement in standard of living and elimination of chronic poverty