Structural transformation and productivity growth in India during 1960–2010

In this paper, we examine the role of structural change and sectoral productivity growth in explaining the aggregate productivity of India relative to the United Sates during 1960–2010. We set up a simple two sector general equilibrium model and calibrate it to fit the structural transformation of United States. Our calibrated model for India highlights the relative importance of agricultural productivity growth in explaining its slow process of catching up in terms of aggregate productivity. We show that India could have progressed at a much faster rate and closed a substantial part of its aggregate productivity gap if its agricultural sector had grown at a rate at par with the United States. It is India's relative productivity growth in the non-agricultural sector that explains all the recent success in its closing the aggregate productivity gap with the United States. We also found that an elimination of relative distortion in agriculture in India could result into a modest improvement in the aggregate labour productivity.     

INEQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY IN EARNINGS AND CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE: THE CASE OF INDIAN MEN

The paper associates inequality of opportunities with outcome differences that can be accounted by predetermined circumstances which lie beyond the control of an individual, such as parental education, parental occupation, caste, religion, and place of birth. The non‐parametric estimates using parental education as a measure of circumstances reveal that the opportunity share of earnings inequality in 2004–05 was 11–19 percent for urban India and 5–8 percent for rural India. The same figures for consumption expenditure inequality are 10–19 percent for urban India and 5–9 percent for rural India. The overall opportunity share estimates (parametric) of earnings inequality due to circumstances, including caste, religion, region, parental education, and parental occupation, vary from 18 to 26 percent for urban India, and from 16 to 21 percent for rural India. The overall opportunity share estimates for consumption expenditure inequality are close to the earnings inequality figures for both urban and rural areas. The analysis further finds evidence that the parental education specific opportunity share of overall earnings (and consumption expenditure) inequality is largest in urban India, but caste and geographical region also play an equally important role when rural India is considered.     

我国财政农业投入的理论阐释与政策优化

农业是国民经济的基础,是关系国计民生的重要部门。鉴于农业的基础性和弱质性决定了财政在必要时给予农业的支持和保护,我国在总体上已经进入以工促农、以城带乡、工业反哺农业的历史阶段,农业的稳定发展是国民经济持续、稳定发展的重要因素。勿庸置疑,农业仍然是我国国民经济的弱势产业,农业与国民经济整体发展不协调的矛盾日益凸显。如何解决这些矛盾,促进农民增收,缩小城乡差距,是＂十二五＂时期乃至今后很长一段时期的重要任务。如何进一步扩大公共财政覆盖农村的范围,建立财政农业投入资金稳定增长机制,是财政农业投入政策的关键所在。本文首先对我国财政农业投入的必要性进行理论探讨;其次,分析我国财政农业投入存在的主要问题;最后,提出未来一段时期我国财政农业投入的政策取向。     

Monetary and fiscal policies' effect on agricultural growth: GMM estimation and simulation analysis

The concept of sustainable economic growth is closely linked with the agricultural growth. This is especially true in the context of under-developed countries. Pakistan is a typical under-developed country that has huge labor force employed in conventional rural economy and more than half of the population relies on agriculture for subsistence. The study examines the agricultural growth through developing a model using the data from agricultural sector of Pakistan for the period 1972–2010. The model is primarily based on input–output reduced form structural equations approach. It is then estimated by GMM, validated and used for deterministic simulation analyses. Finally the validated model is used to critically analyze the impact of fiscal, monetary and energy policies on the agricultural output. We conluded that recent fiscal and monetary policies should be continued, while the energy policy needs to be modified in order to improve the agricultural GDP and reduce the rural poverty situation in the country.     

Information and the operation of markets: tests based on a general equilibrium model of land leasing in India

This paper develops an estimable general equilibrium model of land leasing to test the extent to which information is commonly held in a village and whether village markets are efficient. Information regarding the relative farming skill of households is found to be widespread, but the assumption of perfectly efficient markets within the village is rejected. These results have ramifications for the estimation of agricultural household models and for our understanding of rural institutions. The model is derived from the primitives of the production technology, the extent of information and the distributions of assets and several household unobservables. Simultaneity and selection issues are dealt with explicitly in a two-stage maximum likelihood estimation procedure using panel data from India.     

农村基础设施公共投资与农业增长——基于省际面板数据的例证

农业增长离不开生产要素投入的增加和农村基础设施的完善。由于农村基础设施具有技术不可分性、低排他性、不可贸易性等特征,因而应当主要由政府的公共投资来提供。运用1994—2009年期间中国各省、市、自治区的面板数据,通过模型的比较分析,发现耕地投入和农业劳动力投入是不断递减的,但由于农业经营制度变革、公共投资增多、农业技术进步导致劳动生产率提高等原因,农业总产值仍稳步提升。农田水利灌溉、农业科研、农村教育和农村电力等方面的公共投资都能推动农业增长,但由于各项投资的边际影响不同,需要在不同地区有所侧重。研究还发现,农村基础设施公共投资能够明显缩小西部地区与中东部地区的农业发展差距,促进区域经济协调可持续发展。     

中国农村经济制度变迁与农业增长——对1978-2004年中国农业增长的实证分析

本文对1978—2004年中国农业增长进行了理论与经验两方面的分析。分析的结果是,在农业生产中实施的不同土地制度对从事农业生产的人们形成不同的激励,而在农业生产和经营中推行的价格、财税制度变革又以形成的利益空间影响从事农业生产和经营的人们的积极性,因此,制度变迁是中国改革开放后农业增长的决定性因素。文章借助计量和统计方法,对1978—2004年不同阶段内农村土地制度和价格、财税制度变化影响农业增长的情况进行了检验,用以说明制度变迁的突出贡献。由此可以建议,应该把农村经济制度创新作为实现农业持续增长的主要思路。     

Consumer behaviour in India: An application of the Rotterdam demand system

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent to which the observed data support the postulates of neoclassical theory of consumer behaviour. The absolute price version of the Rotterdam model has been estimated for rural and urban areas of India separately. The results indicate a trade off between theoretical consistency and goodness of fit. The symmetry, but not homogeneity, conditions are found to be empirically valid in rural India. All the other hypotheses are rejected both in rural and urban areas of India. Frequent violation of convexity conditions is also observed. The estimated marginal budget shares, income and price elasticities show marked differences in consumption patterns of rural and urban consumers in India. The effect of foodgrains price rise on the demand for various items is also analysed.     

财政支农结构对农村居民消费的影响分析

财政支农对农村居民消费的影响可能为正也可能为负。本文利用VAR方法对财政支农不同部分对农村居民消费的影响进行了考察。结果表明：（1）从长期来看,支援农村生产支出和农林水利气象事业费、农业科技三项费的支出对农村居民消费产生了“挤入效应”,而农村基本建设支出和农村救济费对农村居民消费产生了“挤出效应”。（2）从冲击大小来看,事业费对农村居民消费的贡献最大,农业科技三项费用次之,农村救济费第三,农村基本建设支出最小。最后提出扩大农村居民消费的政策建议是：增大财政支农力度,农村财政支出占财政总支出的比重应保持稳定增长;优化财政农业支出结构,加大事业费和科技费在财政支农支出中的比重;财政支农支出通过支持农业生产和提高农业综合生产能力能间接地增加农村居民收入,从而带动消费增长。所以应利用财政支农功能带动农民收入的增加。     

Inflationary effects of monetary policies in newly industrialized economies with cross-sectoral labor and capital immobility

This paper studies the effects of monetary policies in newly industrialized economies characterized by extremely low level of labor and capital mobility between urban and rural sectors. Policies are executed in the urban sector which sends waves of adjustments in the rest of the economy. I show that with liquidity constraints and immobility in labor and capital, the sector-specific effects are markedly different from those in a one-sector economy. In particular, they are asymmetric and the rural sector lags behind the urban sector during adjustment process. This explains temporary phases of significantly high inflation with uneven sectoral effects which often accompany major reforms in the banking and monetary institutions of such economies, e.g. in case of India. Finally, as consumption patterns alter in such an economy undergoing structural changes, the sectoral distribution of liquidity is affected inducing dissimilar responses to shocks, both within and between sectors.     

The Effect of Inequality on Growth: Theory and Evidence from the Indian States

The paper examines the effect of inequality on growth among the subnational states in India. Theoretically, growth of the regional economy is driven by productive public investment in the provision of health and education services financed by a linear output tax, and the optimum tax rate is determined by the median voter. In contrast to existing results, the authors obtain an ambiguous relationship between initial inequality and subsequent economic growth. Analysis of the Indian state‐level data suggests that rural inequality influences growth of total output more than urban inequality, and does so negatively. The indicator of intersectoral inequality is more important in explaining sectoral output growth.     

中国农村居民收入与农业投资结构实证分析

文章在偏相关分析的基础上,通过建立典型相关模型,对中国农村居民收入结构和农业投资结构之间的关系展开研究。实证分析农民收入来源结构与农业投资结构各变量之间的关联程度及影响。结果发现,农民收入中的转移性收入与国家财政支农资金的关系最为紧密;工资性收入与农村集体单位投资呈现最大相关,而家庭经营纯收入则与农村居民个人投资呈现最大相关;农业贷款对农民增收具有显著影响,同时我国金融发展在结构和功能上与农村经济发展和农民收入增长的实际需求还不协调。研究结果为探析当前我国农业投资中存在的主要问题,制定和实施积极的农业投资政策提供了实证依据。     

Do Macroeconomics Channels Matter for Examining Relationship Between Public Debt and Economic Growth in India?

Inter-state disparity has been a perennial feature of Indian agriculture. The study probes if per capita income from agriculture has converged across states and finds evidence in favour of beta convergence. Spatial econometric techniques used indicate significant spatial dependence in agricultural growth. Infrastructure like roads, irrigation, and electricity, diversification in cropping pattern and quality of human capital are found to aid in growth. However, excessive rainfall tends to decrease growth rate in India. The spill-over across states are found to be primarily driven by roads, irrigation and rural literacy and we also find significant impact of spatial income growth providing evidence in favour of agglomeration effects. Hence, investments in human capital, physical infrastructure specially water management and incentives towards growing crops which yield higher returns will aid agriculture growth in India.

     

中国劳动力市场发育与就业变化

本文通过梳理关于劳动力市场发育和就业状况的统计数据,并结合微观调查数据,对城乡就业增长和结构变化进行了描述,批评了传统的关于"就业零增长"、"农村剩余劳动力一成不变"等判断。本文提供了有关劳动力市场的指标,准确地反映了伴随着经济增长和改革开放的深入,劳动力市场发育水平的提高、就业总量增长和结构多元化、以及城镇就业压力的缓解和农村剩余劳动力大幅度减少的事实。此外,本文还通过对人口转变过程的阐释,预测了劳动力市场供求的变化趋势,做出刘易斯转折点即将到来的判断,并揭示了这个转折点对中国经济持续增长提出的挑战。     

农业知识源头协同创新的理论构建及对策研究

我国“三农”的现实性和国家农业科技长远发展的战略要求,决定了农业知识源头的大学、涉农企业、农村基层组织、农户之间必须构建知识联盟关系,开展协同创新。以农业知识创造与传播主体之一的农业院校为例,从协同创新的定义、特征、内容、运行模式等理论建构入手,分别从宏观、中观、微观3个层面提出了政府、校际以及校内等不同管理层次所应采取的相关措施,即宏观层面：政府营造协同创新的制度环境;中观层面：构建政产学合作、交流的运行机制;微观层面：改革农业院校的组织结构和激励政策。     

Finance and inequality: a study of Indian states

Although a large literature exists on finance and economic growth, few studies have empirically examined the relationship between finance and inequality. Using grouped national household sample survey data on monthly household consumption expenditure at the sub-national level for the years 1999–2000 to 2006–2007, we examine the relationship between Financial Development (FD) and rural and urban inequality in India. The results indicate that FD is associated with a reduction in inequality, but only in the urban areas. Further, inequality is found to be higher in the richer states compared to less developed and low income states, and as state income increases, inequality also increases both in the rural and urban areas. Finally, our results show that increase in population per bank branch leads to higher inequality in urban areas but decline in rural areas.     

中国与印度人口转变的经济效应——基于1960-2010年时间序列数据的实证分析

使用19个亚洲国家、1960-2010年的面板数据,比较了印度和中国人口转变的过程及所带来的经济增长,预测了中印两国人口发展趋势及对经济增长的贡献。样本期内,中国人口转变因素解释了人均GDP增长的35.3%,而印度为29.1%,态势上,印度人口转变对经济增长的贡献一直平稳上升;而中国经历了20世纪80年代的高点之后开始下降;未来发展趋势上,中国人口转变带来的人口红利会在本世纪30年代变为负数;而印度在2050年前一直维持较大的正值。     

Agriculture: The next decade

So long as a very large section of rural producers continues to operate miniscule holdings, crop raising activity by itself is not going to resolve the poverty problem. It is maintained that in a country like India where the production base of the large majority of the cultivators is very narrow, even a 4% per annum growth in crop production will leave at least 30% of the rural households below the poverty line in year 2000. The basic problem is to bring this section of the producers in the mainstream of economic growth. Several alternative strategies are examined in this paper. The development of high-value, labor intensive, supplementary occupations emerges as the only feasible alternative. The success of this strategy depends on creating infrastructure facilities in the countryside and organizing homogeneous groups of small producers. The latter is necessary to impart the requisite strength to the disadvantaged sections to enable them to interact with the delivery system on equal footing.     

农业产业化与城镇化的几个问题

人口向城市集中以及产业的非农业化是经济发展与社会全面进步的重要标志.城镇化乃至城市化对于转移农村富余劳动力,从根本上解决三农问题和打破城乡二元结构,促进宏观产业结构的调整都具有重要作用,农村城镇化与农业生产方式的革命是互相促进的作用,二者不可偏废.工业、农业和城镇的发展是经济发展同一个问题紧密联系不可分割的三个有机组成部分,农业发展占据着启动全局的特殊地位;我国城市化的合理道路是区域型特大城市、大中小城市、小城镇协同发展,形成层次结构合理、功能互补的城市网络;政府可以通过实施灵活的经济政策与制定合理的规划在城市发展中发挥积极作用.     

When does growth trickle down to the poor? The Indian case

A theoretical analysis and several econometric tests have beenundertaken to examine whether the trickle down effect took placein rural India over a long time period. We found little evidenceto suggest that the trickle down effect had occurred at all;our analysis suggests that the emergence of capital-labour substitutionwas primarily responsible for preventing growth from reducingpoverty. The decline in poverty and a higher growth rate thattook place during the late 1970s and 1980s were largely a resultof government anti-poverty measures teamed with the more equitabledistribution of credit and inputs to smaller and marginal farmers.