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The article presents comments of the author on a paper by P.K. Bardhan and T.N. Srinivasan, titled "Cropsharing Tenancy in Agriculture: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," published in the March 1971 issue of the journal "American Economic Review." Bardhan and Srinivasan constructed a simple theoretical model of sharecropping from which they were able to make several predictions and which they tested against Indian data. They claimed to have constructed a competitive theory of share tenancy in which the equilibrium share rental was parametrically given to all agents, which they contrasted with an earlier attempt at a general equilibrium model of sharecropping by S.N.S. Cheung. The author argues that Cheung was correct in describing a competitive theory of share tenancy, though the incompleteness of his treatment appears to have misled Bardhan and Srinivasan and possibly others. It follows that the analysis of Bardhan and Srinivasan is incorrect and that any attempt to modify their model while retaining the spirit of the original will ironically give rise to pure monopoly equilibrium.

While the green revolution has increased food production, its effects on rural employment and income distribution are causing concern. This paper presents empirically based estimates of the impact of new technology on employment and incomes at the local level. Results indicate that although adoption of new seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation increases employment and agricultural wages, it also increases the disparity between incomes of farmers and agricultural laborers, a disparity which will increase further if labor-saving machinery is introduced. New technology will reduce the disparity between incomes of large and small farmers if credit and fertilizers are distributed according to area operated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents abstracts of articles on economics and other related topics published in the May 1965 issue of the journal Economica. The article Adam Smith on the Division of Labour: Two Views or One?, by Nathan Rosenberg attempts to demonstrate that Smith's handling of the consequences of a growing division of labor was in fact substantially free of the contradictions which have often been attributed to it. But more important, it attempts to show that there is embedded in Smiths' writing a fairly sophisticated and hitherto unnoticed analysis of the determinants of inventive activity. Inventive activity is itself envisaged by Smith as a specialised activity within the framework of a larger social division of labor. Moreover, the paper titled A Dissenting View of Duopoly and Spatial Competition, by Nicos E. Devletoglou develops an operational mechanism capable of questioning the significance of the celebrated Hotelling thesis on spatial competition under conditions of duopoly. Furthermore, the article Size of Farm and Productivity: A Problem of Indian Peasant Agriculture, by Dipak Mazumdar presents a cross-section analysis of data in the recent farm management surveys in India. The data shows that as the size of the farm decreases the amount of input per acre increases, as does the output per acre. An examination of the data shows that this result is mainly due to the application of more labour per unit of land as the size of the farm becomes smaller. The analysis yields the conclusion that the marginal product of labour in Indian agriculture is positive but less than the going wage-rate. The policy implications of the observation that smaller farms are in some sense more efficient are also interesting.

Presents information related to several abstracts on economics published in the April 1962 issue of the journal 'The Indian Economic Journal.' Applicability and limitations of economic development theory; Tax resources in the third plan in India; Economic growth and price level in the American economy; Co-operative farming, investment and organizational problems in agriculture.

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The article presents the reply of the author regarding the criticism of his research paper "Ideology and Indian planning," published in the April 1968 issue of "American Journal of Economics and Sociology." According to the author, he was not attempting to trace the history of doctrinaire thought in the Congress Party or in other political parties in India. He was trying to show that an admittedly amorphous intellectual approach to public economic policy has been pervasive in the political leadership for over thirty years, and that it was endemic in the Planning Commission. Regarding comments on the Mahalanobis model, the author says that they are interesting, but he thought that he had said sufficient about the "logical premises" to show that the model was highly unrealistic for India from its inception. Its neglect of some of the vital parameters of a market economy, including the agricultural "surplus," was classic in this type of planning. India will be paying the price for the neglect of agriculture, the one great potential source of saving, for a generation.

This article explores the relative efficiency of wheat production in the Indian Punjab. In recent contributions to this research review, Lawrence Lau and Pan Yotopoulos applied the profit function concept to the analysis of relative efficiency of Indian agriculture. They developed an operational model to measure and compare economic efficiency and its components of technical efficiency and price efficiency for groups of firms. There are two conclusions that follow the analysis of data. First, there seem to be limited possibilities for growth by improving allocative efficiency in moving toward production frontiers. Second, the researcher finds that tractor-operated wheat farms are no better off in terms of their economic performance than non-tractor-operated farms and that large farms are no better off than small farms.

A series of chemical-biological breakthroughs in agricultural technology in recent years in large areas of the poor countries in the world have been picturesquely, if somewhat inappropriately, described as the green revolution. The use of high yielding varieties of seeds together with chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other new inputs has dramatically changed the trend and pattern of agricultural production in some of these areas and this in turn is bound to have wide-ranging social and economic effects. The prevailing views on the impact of the green revolution, however, take two divergent lines. One is to emphasize that the new technology breaks the vicious circle of centuries-old stagnation in traditional agriculture and catapults it into the era of modern, efficient, prosperous capitalist agriculture, with even the poor farmers and landless laborers gaining absolutely because the cake to be shared is so much larger now. The other view is to focus on the forces, generated by the green revolution, which tend to accentuate the existing enormous inequality in the economic system those who believe in a strong correlation between increasing inequality and growing discontent and agrarian tensions see here germs of an impending revolution which might ultimately change its color to red.

The article presents abstracts of several topics related to economics. Some of them are "Changing the Balance Among Economic Factors," by T.N. Carver. It is a general program for a proper occupational balance in our population. "The Accuracy of Labor," by L. Kotamy presents the effect of the differences between individuals in "inborn" accuracy upon industrial technique and its expression in wages. "A Prospectus of Sociological Theory," by A.W. Small is about the nineteenth century drive towards objectivity in social sciences. "The Indian Food Problem," by D. S. Dubey is a statistical study of the requirements of food grains and the supply in India. "Railway Valuation," by F. Rhea states the cost of reproduction and depreciation. "Potent Forces Seen Shaping the New Era of Business," by C.S. Duncan states that the interdependence of industries makes the control of raw materials a tremendous coercive power, while the movement towards nationalization and the world-wide organization of employer and employed are important factors."

This article presents the salient facts of the vital phenomena of an Indian province for each month, during a series of years when the ordinary vicissitudes in the primary conditions of life were accentuated by alternating failures and recovery of the harvests. The scene of the drama is the Central Provinces situated in the heart of India, i.e., in the northern-central part of the peninsular region. It consists of cultivated plains or plateaux, rising to 1,000 feet above sea level, cut off from the Gangetic plain by the Vindhyan range and intersected by belts of broken highlands. The black cotton soil of the plains is very fertile, yielding, under sufficient rainfall, various abundant crops. The mean temperature is somewhat higher than that of other parts of India of similar elevation and the year comprises three distinct seasons. The proportion of the population engaged directly in agricultural or pastoral labor amounts to 75 percent, the average for India as a whole being 70 percent.

This article examines relative efficiency in agriculture in India. The McFadden's profit function was used to test the equal relative economic efficiency. The authors discovered that a firm's maximized profit as a function of the prices of output and variable inputs of production and of the quantities of the fixed factors. In the Cobb-Douglas formulation the comparison of relative efficiency of two groups of firms is simply made by examining the coefficient of the group dummy variable. A crucial feature of the profit function analysis is that it assumes firms behave according to certain decision rules, which include the profit maximization rules, given the price regime for output and variable inputs and given the quantities of their fixed factors of production. The conclusion of the test of relative economic efficiency is in favor of the small farms.

This article traces the origin of zamindari estates and permanent settlement system in Bengal, India during pre 1847. The administrative and fiscal experiment so denominated is familiar, at least by name, to every reader of Indian history, partly because it necessarily finds a place in any account of the rule of the East India Co. in Bengal; partly because it is associated with many (not always reasonable) differences of opinion; and partly, also, because it is understood, in general terms, to have involved the solution of some rather curious economic problems. A concrete illustration of the working of this measure will hardly need any lengthened apology. In order to make such an illustration intelligible, it will be necessary to call to mind exactly what "the settlement" implied. In modern Bengal the lower orders of the agricultural population at the present day are very largely of the aboriginal i.e., non-Aryan stock. Even the middle castes are of a mixed and much altered race. The purer Aryan or Hindu type is represented by a limited upper social crust, a ruling and everywhere dominant element.

Discusses cotton exports and Indian agriculture between 1861 and 1870. Quantities of raw cotton exported from India; Impact of American war on the production of cotton in India; Statistics showing increase in land under cotton and under all crops.

Analyzes the responsiveness of farmers to changes in profitability with reference to non-food crops in India from 1900 to 1939. Effectiveness of price in causing changes in production patterns; Attitudes of farmers to profitability relationships; Contrast between modern and traditional agriculture.

Examines the interrelationship between the growth of agriculture and industry in the context of the growth of Punjab's economy in India. Justification of a study on the interrelationship between growth of agriculture and industry in the Indian context; Distinction between net marketable and net marketed surplus; Theoretical literature on intersectoral growth.

The objective of the article is to study the economic structure of rural Bengal in India and to describe its character and its function. The village economy of India is based on agriculture. Because of the primitive techniques of agricultural production, rural India is often regarded as a subsistence economy and egalitarian society in which the people have a uniformly low financial status. Even within the small range of the income distribution, there is a well-defined income hierarchy of a type production, rural India is often regarded as a subsistence economy and an egalitarian society in which the people have a uniformly low financial status and suffer distress in common. The rate of disintegration of the economy of rural Bengal is gathering momentum. But its form remains the same: that of purely agricultural production; the industrialization of the country is taking place extremely slowly. A conflict between the form and the content of the economy thus seem to be imminent and inevitable in these villages.

Improved practices recommended by the extension service are not uniformly adopted by all farmers. An investigation was carried out in ten villages to ascertain the characteristics of farmers who adopted the improved practices. It was found that those who adopted more belonged to the higher castes, were literate, and had higher participation in community activities. There was some indication that those who owned their farms adopted slightly more than those farmers who did not own their farms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on rural conditions in India in the late 1920s. Importance and backwardness of agriculture; Literacy and sanitation; Peasant indebtedness; Cooperative credit institutions; Cooperation in agriculture, popular education and public health.

A comparative analysis of the concept of happy life was made among 300 Indian farmers from the developed and 290 from undeveloped villages. The pattern of needs and values reflected in such projections were similar in the two groups. Villagers were overwhelmingly concerned with immediate economic values and did not frequently display needs transcending their purely personal or familial spheres. Differences existed with regard to clarity with which the needs were expressed, and to the extent they were realistic or fanciful. The projections of the farmers from the developed group were comparatively more reality-oriented, and characterized by greater precision and clarity than those from the undeveloped group. On the other hand, farmers from the undeveloped villages tended more frequently than farmers from the developed villages to indicate needs beyond their span of attainment, and in terms which were general and vague. The need for proper channelization of urges as an important precondition for rapid socioeconomic development is stressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]