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1. Banking upon Agrarian Crisis: Rural Development and the Microfinance Crisis in Andhra Pradesh, India.

Author

Taylor, Marcus

Subjects
*RURAL development, *MICROFINANCE, *CONSUMPTION (Economics), *SOCIAL forces
Abstract

Within neoliberal development discourse the poor are represented as entrepreneurial subjects in potentiâ for whom integration into the circuits of finance is a key mechanism to facilitate their rise out of poverty. In both rural and urban settings, microfinance initiatives have been heralded as central to achieving this integration by providing sustainable flows of credit to groups excluded from the formal banking system. This paper examines how the 2010 microfinance crisis in Andhra Pradesh, India, reveals significant faultlines that underlie this vision. The paper argues that the crisis of microfinance in AP needs to be placed within the context of severe agrarian dislocations stemming from the impact of trade liberalisation, climate change and social policy reforms. The contradictions are most strikingly represented in increasing rural differentiation and a generalised crisis of social reproduction among landpoor farmers and landless labourers. A massive influx of microfinance - driven by private sector banking and increasingly leveraged through crossborder financial flows - found a ready clientele among various agrarian classes looking to smooth consumption and rollover debt in conditions of significant uncertainty and distress. Yet in banking on this vulnerability, microfinance institutions socialised the contradictions of rural Andhra Pradesh and have ultimately been thrown into limbo through the unleashing of political and social forces unforeseen in neoliberal narratives of agrarian change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2011

2. The Antinomies of 'Financial Inclusion': Debt, Distress and the Workings of Indian Microfinance.

Author

TAYLOR, MARCUS

Subjects
*MICROFINANCE, *CONSUMPTION (Economics), *LAND reform, *ECONOMICS
Abstract

The concept of 'financial inclusion' has become a central trope that legitimates a wide range of contemporary development practices. By constructing a new object of development - the 'financially excluded' - it facilitates the expansion of an increasingly corporatized microfinance technocracy. The present paper problematizes the underlying binaries of inclusion/exclusion and formal/informal finance upon which this narrative is based. Through an examination of the 2010 Andhra Pradesh microfinance crisis, it demonstrates key contradictions within the discourse and practices of commercial microfinance. In so doing, it demonstrates why the narrative of financial inclusion and its correlate notion of 'consumption smoothing' are inadequate tools with which to conceptualize the political economy of contemporary agrarian change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2012
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3. Measuring the Performance of River Basins: Application of Total Factor Productivity Approach to Andhra Pradesh, India.

Author

Palanisami, K. and Ranganathan, C. R.

Subjects
*INDUSTRIAL productivity, *WATERSHEDS, *PERFORMANCE evaluation, *ECONOMIC development, *DATA envelopment analysis, *CONSUMPTION (Economics)
Abstract

Total Factor Productivity (TFP) measures the growth in output which is not accounted for by inputs. Data Envelopment Analysis which forms the basis for the computation of Malmquist TFP index is used in this paper to study the performance of different river basins in Andhra Pradesh state, India. The results indicated that average technical efficiency of all the basins is only 66%. In all the basins there was a decline in growth of agricultural output during the first two decades, viz., 1979-1980 to 1988-1989 and it had picked in the last decade (1999-2000). All the river basins have TFP change greater than 1 indicating progress in agricultural productivity. Out of the 40 river basins, 14 river basins have technical efficiency change less than 1 indicating decline in TFP growth whereas all the basins have technical changes greater than 1 implying that there is shift in production frontier over years. In general, within the TFP, technical change contributed more than technical efficiency change. Looking at the future options for increasing the agricultural output in the river basins, it is important to focus on improving the TFP growth compared to increasing the quantities of physical inputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2012
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