Specialization and Diversfication in Agricultural Transformation: The Case of Rural Punjab, c.1900-1995

Takashi Kurosaki

Discussion Paper Series from Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: In this paper, the role of crop specialization and diversification in the process of agricultural transformation is empirically investigated for the case of Punjub. The analytical innovation of this paper is that changes in aggregate land productivity are structurally as-sociated with inter-crop, inter-district, and inter-household reallocation of land use. This structual association enables us to characterize the nature of market development and agricultural transformation in a specific region. The empirical part is based on newly-compiled production data Punjab's agriculture for the period c.1900-1995, where a rapid growth of agricultural production has been observed. Quantiative results show that, first, the diversity of a traditional and subsistence agriculture went down at the macro (national), semi-macro (district), and household levels, but at a lower pace at the macro level. This change was associated with crop shifts reflecting comparative advantages. Second, even in a region with the oldest history of commercialization of agriculture in developing countries, two phases were clearly distinguished in the specialization process-- the first phase in which local transactions such as intra-village sales enable each farm to specialize in crops and the secound phase in which inter-regional trading becomes more efficient, inducing a rapid specialization at that level.

Keywords: diversification; comparative advantage; agricultural transformation; growth accounting; Punjab. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 O47 Q10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001-02
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hit:hituec:a406

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Paper Series from Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Hiromichi Miyake ().