Sources of Output Growth in Indian Agriculture during the Post-Reform Period

Economic growth has failed to be sufficiently inclusive, particularly after the mid-nineties. Although agriculture is still a single major sector providing livelihood to more than 60 percent of the population, it has lost its growth momentum and the share has been declining continuously for a variety of reasons like low income due to inadequate output growth, low productivity, lack of credit at reasonable rates, natural calamities and unavailability of proper extension services. Realizing the importance of this sector and its current crisis, the Eleventh Plan aims to reverse this trend. Output growth could be possible by increasing input growth, technical progress and improvement in technical efficiency. In order to identify the source of the problem, this paper attempts to decompose the agricultural output growth obtained in 15 major states for the period 1994-95 to 2003-04 into the above three components using the random coefficients frontier production function model. Results of the study indicate that the efficiency has declined over time for all the states and the average technical efficiency is only 72 percent. This means that there is a potential to increase the existing output by 28 percent without increasing inputs.We found that inmost of the states, growth was only due to higher inputs. Investment in extension services along with sustained investment in agricultural research and development, and infrastructure is the need of the hour. West Bengal is the most efficient state in applying labor and fertilizer inputs and also has a very high over all efficiency. This can be linked to the successful land reform policies of the state.economic growth, technical efficiency, Eleventh Plan, frontier production function, land reform

Import Competition, Formalization, and the Role of Contract Labor

Using the case of the Indian manufacturing sector and exploiting plausibly exogenous variation from Chinese imports, we provide causal evidence that higher import competition increases the share of the formal enterprise employment. We find an increase in the level of formal enterprise employment, driven by the high productivity firms, and in contrast, a fall in the informal enterprise employment. This labor reallocation is enabled by contract workers, who do not carry stringent ring costs. Our estimates imply that Chinese import competition led to an increase in the share of formal sector employment by 4.1 percentage points between 2000 and 2005. We calculate the labor productivity gap between the formal and informal sector, adjusting for differences in prices and worker characteristics and find them to be salient in explaining the observed gap. Our preferred estimate of the productivity gap implies an increase in labor productivity by 3.19% in response to Chinese import competition

Import Competition, Formalization, and the Role of Contract Labor

Does higher import competition increase formalization and aggregate productivity? Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation from Chinese imports, we provide empirical causal evidence that higher imports increases the share of formal manufacturing enterprise employment in India. This formal share increase is due to both the rise in formal-enterprise employment driven by high-productivity firms, and a fall in informal-enterprise employment. The labor reallocation is enabled by the formal firms’ hiring of contract workers, who do not carry stringent firing costs. Overall, Chinese import competition increased formal-sector employment share by 3.7 percentage points, and aggregate labor productivity by 2.87 percent, between the years 2000–2001 and 2005–2006

Hazards in the Wake of Climate Change Induced Extreme Weather Events and Their Impact on Indian Fisheries

Climate change, whether driven by natural or human forcing, can lead to changes in the likelihood of the occurrence or strength of extreme weather and climate events or both. In recent past, the increased occurrence of extreme climatic events has caused enormous damage t

Minimum Wage Effects at Different Enforcement Levels: Evidence from Employment Surveys in India

WP 2014-12 April 2014JEL Classification Codes: J30; J3

Estimating small-area population density in Sri Lanka using surveys and Geo-spatial data.

Country-level census data are typically collected once every 10 years. However, conflicts, migration, urbanization, and natural disasters can rapidly shift local population patterns. This study demonstrates the feasibility of a "bottom-up"-method to estimate local population density in the between-census years by combining household surveys with contemporaneous geo-spatial data, including village-area and satellite imagery-based indicators. We apply this technique to the case of Sri Lanka using Poisson regression models based on variables selected using the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO). The model is estimated in villages sampled in the 2012/13 Household Income and Expenditure Survey, and is employed to obtain out-of-sample density estimates in the non-surveyed villages. These estimates approximate the census density accurately and are more precise than other bottom-up studies using similar geo-spatial data. While most open-source population products redistribute census population "top-down" from higher to lower spatial units using areal interpolation and dasymetric mapping techniques, these products become less accurate as the census itself ages. Our method circumvents the problem of the aging census by relying instead on more up-to-date household surveys. The collective evidence suggests that our method is cost effective in tracking local population density with greater frequency in the between-census years

Political Activism as a Determinant of Clientelistic Transfers: Evidence from an Indian Public Works Program

Are political activists preferentially targeted by politicians engaging in clientelistic transfers to bolster political support? We provide the first model to highlight two possible rationales for such transfers: to mobilize support from the activists themselves, or to mobilize support from electors these activists have influence over. Using novel household data on ex ante political affiliation and jobs received subsequent to large-scale decentralized workfare program in India, we find that activists are indeed preferentially targeted, and furthermore, such transfers are more pronounced in locations where citizen political involvement is less common, and in remote and less connected areas where activists' role in information transfers is most critical. We argue that the evidence is consistent with the use of transfers to leverage the influence of activists over the decision-making of other electors. Our results are not driven by self selection, reverse causality, and other program transfers, and are robust to alternate definitions of "activism"