On Estimating and Explaining Rural Poverty Sudhanshu Ranade Introduction N KRISHNAJI's recent paper [EPW, June 27, 1987] voices scepticism about the supposed empirical evidence [Mellor and Desai (ed) 1986] on the economic determinants of rural poverty. Actually, such scepticism was expressed even by some of the papers in that book, though not then taken seriously by its editors. Perhaps this was because the dissenters did not rigorously develop their critical arguments, a lacuna Krishnaji has now contributed to filling. Unfortunately, in doing so, he has attempted to reinvent the wheel; always a laborious exercise, and usually imperfectly successful.
