This book provides a blueprint for the allocation of public expenditures “in” and “for” agriculture at the dis-aggregated state level and suggests a reorientation in favour of disadvantaged regions where the marginal returns on additional investments would be higher. It provides insights into the inter-linkages between public expenditures, private investment, rural poverty, and agriculture productivity from a regional perspective to reflect upon spatial differences in the welfare effects of various investments, subsidies, and policies. The book focuses on agricultural growth and rural poverty reduction through public and private investments, non-farm employment, and other pathways to the formulation of appropriate policies at the dis-aggregated state level. It presents new evidence based on advanced econometric tools for analysing and understanding the relationship between public and private investments in agriculture and input subsidies (fertilizer, power, irrigation, and credit) together with their impacts at the dis-aggregated state level. The book also deliberates on an income based direct support system for farmers as an alternative to the existing input price subsidy regime. Accordingly, the book offers valuable insights not only for researchers working on poverty alleviation, rural economy, and agricultural growth, but also for policymakers.

Establishes relationship between poverty and unemployment and between social structure and poverty in the rural areas of Central India. Deals with both theoretical and empirical aspects of poverty and unemployment. The problems inherent in conceptualization as well as various theories and ideologies of poverty and unemployment, have been discussed in detail.

January 1998 Continued agricultural growth and diversification into nonagricultural activities are essential if India is to continue reducing rural poverty. But policymakers hoping to alleviate rural poverty must also be aware of the causes and implications of persisting, if not increasing, inequality within villages. Jayaraman and Lanjouw review longitudinal village studies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives to identify changes in living standards in rural India in recent decades. They scrutinize the main forces of economic change-agricultural intensification, changes in land relations, and occupational diversification-to explain changes in level and distribution of living standards in rural communities. These forces of economic change appear to have offset or at least mitigated the pressure that growing populations can place on existing resources. But the decline in rural poverty has been slow and irregular at best. Nor is poverty reduction only a matter of economic development. For instance, the rural poor often attribute much of the improvement in their living conditions to reduced dependence on patrons. There are few reports in village studies of particularly effective government policies aimed at reducing poverty. The long-term poor still tend to be from the disadvantaged castes and to live in households that rely on income from agricultural labor. There is little evidence that inequalities within village communities have declined. In some cases improved material well-being of rural households has led to greater social stratification rather than less, with women and members of the lower castes suffering the consequences. Such inequalities could limit how policy interventions or continued growth can reduce poverty further. Policymakers must ensure accountability to keep abuses-for example, the privileged classes directing all benefits to themselves-to a minimum. This paper-a product of Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to study the dynamics of poverty in the South Asia region.

This book reviews the fulfillment of two Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), namely poverty and inequality, in the Indian subcontinent. It examines the complex interplay among development, inequality and poverty in relation to corruption, environmental resource management, agricultural adjustment to climate change and institutional arrangements, with a special focus on the Northeastern region of the country. The topics covered offer a blend of theoretical arguments and empirical data with regard to the three main themes of the book, while also providing agricultural and environmental perspectives. The book also provides guidelines for policy initiatives for harnessing the region’s potential in the areas of industry, trade, sustainable use of mineral, forest and other natural resources, nature-based tourism through proper infrastructure development, and resolving land issues to achieve inclusive development.In addition to introducing some new questions on the development-ethnic conflict interface, it uses sophisticated tools such as the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition method in consumption expenditure to show the endowment, and return to endowment effects; and techniques like spatial correlation-regression to analyze regional variation, co-integration, vector autoregression, the panel data technique and the adaptation index to climate change, to understand socio-economic complexities and the effect of the concerned variables on entrepreneurship and human development.The book offers a timely contribution to our understanding of major MDGs and highlights their successes and failures. It also includes analytical frameworks that are key to future policy initiatives. Further, it disseminates approaches and methods that improve livelihoods and standards of living through poverty reduction and promoting inclusive development along with sustainable utilization of available natural resources. Putting forward various ideas for creating a more sustainable future, it inspires and encourages readers to pursue further studies to address the gaps that still remain.

Growth (trickle- down) and poverty alleviation (pull- up) programs are not substitutes for each other, but complements, the Indian data on poverty show.