Farm productivity and rural poverty in India

Datt, Gaurav; Ravallion, Martin. 1998. Farm productivity and rural poverty in India. FCND Discussion Paper 42. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/161223

To what extent do India’s rural poor share in agricultural growth? Combining data from 24 household sample surveys spanning 35 years with other sources, we estimate a model of the joint determination of consumption-poverty measures, agricultural wages, and food prices. We find that higher farm productivity brought both absolute and relative gains to poor rural households. A large share of the gains were via wages and prices, though these effects took time. The benefits to the poor were not confined to those near the poverty line.