AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT, STATE EFFECTIVENESS AND LONG-RUN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

This paper begins with the presumption that rapid economic development requires an effective state. An effective state is able to act independently of powerful interest groups with the aim of allocating resources so as to maximize long-term economic growth. It will be argued that such states are more likely to arise in situations within which the state must earn its income. That is, it must construct an institutional apparatus to extract the revenue that it needs and it is dependent upon the bulk of its agricultural producers to produce this revenue. The higher agricultural productivity within a region, the more dependent the state will be on revenues from the bulk of its agricultural producers. This dependency will lead, through a dialectical process, to a state whose activities will be constrained, a state which will be able to effectively commit itself to long-run development. This proposition is tested using time series/cross-sectional data for a sample of diverse countries from the 1960¡¯s through 1990¡¯s.Agricultural Productivity, State Effectiveness, Institutional Quality

Spousal-Differences in Perception of Female Autonomy in Household Decision-Making in Nepal

The primary objective of this paper is to see how spouses differ in terms of their perception of female autonomy in household decision-making in Nepal and the factors that influence these perceptions. Understanding the perception of female autonomy is important in general but particularly so for developing countries with traditional male-dominated and well-defined patriarchal roles in society. In general, the results seem to converge between men and women when it comes to perception of female autonomy in non-economic decision making but not when it relates to decision-making in economic matters. The results have important policy implications

Economic Development and the Role of Agricultural Technology

In earlier debates on economic development, the agricultural sector’s role was somewhat controversial. While dualistic models highlighted the importance of agriculture, the mainstream literature placed a greater emphasis on the creation of a modern industrial sector. Soon agriculture disappeared from the mainstream development literature to re-emerge recently with a variety of multiple-sector growth models emphasizing the key role of agriculture and specifically technology in agriculture. This paper is an empirical cross-country analysis of agricultural technology’s role in economic development. Specifically, the hypothesis being tested is whether improvements in agricultural technology have a significant impact on long-run economic growth. The results indicate that agricultural modernization has a positive effect on both measures of economic growth and human development

Gender Bias in Education: the Role of Inter-household Externality, Dowry and Other Social Institutions

We analyze gender bias in school enrollment by developing a two-period model where women become part of extended families of their in-laws. Each family decides how many children are sent to school and thus become skilled. Gender bias occurs due to failure of the families to internalize inter-household externalities. ‘Groom-price’ dowry worsens the situation. Under ‘bride-price’ dowry, bias exists if and only if the skill premium in the labor market is bigger than that in the marriage market. A specific discriminatory ‘food-for-education’ policy is shown to reduce bias, but increase total enrollment. Finally, using cross-country data, we test some of the predictions of our theoretical analysis

Agricultural Technology and Child Labor: Evidence from India

Child labor continues to be a major problem in developing countries, particularly in agricultural countries. The latest ILO global report points out that nine out of every ten child laborer is involved in the agricultural sector. The focus of this paper is on the rural sector in India, a country where child labor continues to be a major problem. A number of factors have been found to significantly influence the extent of child labor. This paper will focus on the type of technology utilized in the agricultural sector. Technology is divided into two types: biochemical and mechanical. The empirical results indicate that biochemical technology is not strongly linked to child labor. However, mechanical technology is found to have a statistically significant and negative impact on child labor

Exogamy and Bias Against Daughters in Health-care Provision: A Theory and Evidence from Two Northern States in India

This is a theoretical and empirical paper to analyze possible bias against daughters in the provision of healthcare. Women once married become part of in-laws’ families, leading to certain inter-family externalities in household decision making, which in turn result in gender bias in healthcare. We test our theoretical predictions using LSMS household survey data from two Indian states, viz. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. We find strong evidence for the existence of bias against daughters. We also find, consistent with our theory but contrary to conventional wisdom, that the bias is more pronounced among Hindu families (who tend to practice exogamy) than among Muslim families (who very commonly intermarry)

Agricultural Development, State Effectiveness, and Long-Run Economic Development

This paper begins with the presumption that rapid economic development requires an effective state. An effective state is able to act independently of powerful interest groups with the aim of allocating resources so as to maximize long-term economic growth. It will be argued that such states are more likely to arise in situations within which the state must earn its income. That is, it must construct an institutional apparatus to extract the revenue that it needs and it is dependent upon the bulk of its agricultural producers to produce this revenue. The higher agricultural productivity within a region, the more dependent the state will be on revenues from the bulk of its agricultural producers. This dependency will lead, through a dialectical process, to a state whose activities will be constrained, a state which will be able to effectively commit itself to long-run development. This proposition is tested using time series/cross-sectional data for a sample of diverse countries from the 1960’s through 1990’s

Economic Development and Convergence Revisited: the Role of Agricultural Modernization

In earlier debates on economic development, the agricultural sector’s role was somewhat controversial. While dualistic models highlighted the importance of agriculture the mainstream literature placed a greater emphasis on the creation of a modern industrial sector. Soon agriculture disappeared from the mainstream development literature to re-emerge recently with a variety of multiple-sector growth models emphasizing the key role of agriculture. This paper is an empirical cross-country analysis of agriculture’s role in economic development. The focus is the importance of agricultural modernization as a precondition for convergence in postwar growth rates as well as an indicator for overall growth and wellbeing

Education and long run development in Japan

This presentation will be based on a paper, co-authored with Richard Grabowski of Southern Illinois University and submitted to The Journal of Asian Economies, that address the relationship between various levels of education and economic growth in Japan. The data utilized represent average years of schooling at the primary, secondary, tertiary, and vocational educational levels. The results indicate that primary schooling is causal with respect to economic growth in both the pre- and post-war periods, while secondary and tertiary education have a causal impact on growth in the postwar period. The evidence strongly reflects the multiple channels via which tertiary education influenced the post-war Japanese economy. Vocational education does not seem to have had a direct effect on growth in either period. Time for discussion will be reserved at the end of the presentation

What makes motherhood so expensive? The role of social expectations, interdependence, and coordination failure

This presentation utilizes stereotypical roles of mothers to explain the difference in pay between women without children and those with in the labor market. The solutions that the literature offers are better family-friendly employment policies and better provisions for childcare. The paper it is based on does not deny these as solutions, but it shows that simply providing more services does not work in itself. The presentation will also provides some explanations for the existence of a more severe form of gender gap in developing countries and a relatively less severe one in Europe as compared to the United States