Articles by V N Misra

Price and Non-Price Determinants of Rural Poverty V N Misra Introduction IT is argued here that the impact of relative prices on rural poverty became non-significant in the recent article by B M Desai and N V Namboodiri (hereafter as DN) (1998b) probably because it is being included in the equation along with the consumer price index numbers of agricultural labours (CPIAL) measuring thereby the inflation in explaining the changes in rural poverty during the period 1961-62 to 1993-94. Similarly, the explanation for significantly negative coefficient for the distribution in ownership of landholdings is rather misplaced, because it did not change during the last two decades. It seems to have been influenced by other factors included in the equation. Further, it is difficult to rely on the ranking among variables based on standardised coefficients due to the non-inclusion of the most important variable like real agricultural wages capturing the impact of rural labour market on rural poverty in the explanatory framework. As a result, the various tradeoffs regarding policy issues based on the coefficients are likely to change if the real agricultural wage is included in the equation. Therefore, for various policy issues, the study of DN is much to be desired. The rationale for these comments would be evident from the following discussions on their findings.

Supply and Private Investment in Agriculture Indian Experience V N Misra The favourable terms of trade to agriculture, in the process of economic reforms, seem to have helped in raising aggregate output and private investment in Indian agriculture. While discussing the results of econometric analysis, it has been shown that one is likely to get a positve coefficient for the terms of trade either by incorporating the interaction term between the terms of trade and technology or by estimating the Nerlovian adjustment lag model by including the important factors directly related to production in the equation.

Price and Non-Price Factors in Agricultural Investments V N Misra Peter B R Hazell THE critical observations by B D Dhawan (1996; BD hereafter) on our paper (Misra and Hazell 1996] are primarily concerned about estimated private investment equation. He thinks that we give too much emphasis to the price factor and not enough to the role of public investments while interpreting the results. Indeed, he accuses us of being excessively zealous in underscoring the role of prices. His comments seem misplaced when viewed within the broader context of our paper. We attempted to analyse the role of price and non-price factors in determining the complex interrelationships among agricultural output, investment and rural poverty. Our general finding is that non- price factors, especially investments in irrigation and improved technology are crucial for agricultural growth and alleviation of rural poverty. The fact that we also find that the private component of these investments responds positively to more favourable prices hardly leads us to conclude that the public component of these investments is not also vital. What follows is a brief discussion on the important points raised by BD on our paper.

T S Papola V N Misra The rationale for the emphasis on rural industrialisation in the development policy in India lies primarily in the following objective conditions. First, agricultural growth, even if rapid to the extent feasible, is unlikely to be able to provide productive employment to all the labour force in the rural areas. Second, underemployment among even those engaged in agriculture would continue following from the very nature of agricultural activities. Third, the organised industrial sector, mainly concentrated in urban areas, has not been growing fast enough to absorb the growing labour force in the cities, let alone the rural workers migrating to seek work in the urban industrial sector.