Political Economy of Land Reforms and Decentralized Governance in West Bengal 1978-98

1978-98 年西孟加拉邦土地改革和分权治理的政治经济学

• 批准号: 0418434
• 负责人: Dilip Mookherjee
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Trustees of Boston University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-08-15 至 2007-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0418434&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Political; Economy; Land; Reforms; Decentralized

Understanding the relationship between politics and economic policy is central to understanding the development process in low-income countries. This research will study the experience of the state of West Bengal, India, which embarked on a set of institutional reforms based on land reform and decentralized governance in the agrarian sector for the past quarter century. Besides their agrarian focus, these reforms differ from "Washington consensus"-style policy reforms occurring in many developing countries during this period in that they were explicitly aimed at reducing poverty: their principal thrust was to redistribute assets and improve delivery of public services to the poor. The reforms were accompanied by faster growth of agricultural output, diffusion of high yielding varieties of rice, and diversification by farmers into cash crops. The research will be based on detailed micro data already collected for a sample of 89 West Bengal villages covering land reform, activities of elected local government, evolution of demographics, land distribution, education, occupations and caste, and production on farms of varying size. The first question addressed by the research concerns the main political motives for land reform. Were they driven by political ideology of the Left party in power, or by pressures of electoral competition, or reduced power of landed elites to block such reforms? It will also evaluate the effect of the land reform in changing the distribution of landownership within these villages, relative to the effects of market transactions and family fragmentation. The second component of the research will assess the pro-poor targeting of various farm inputs and development programs implemented by local governments, to infer the extent they were politically accountable to the poor. Combined with the first part of the research, it will try to empirically assess the importance of the land reform in ensuring the antipoverty success of the decentralization program. The third and final part of the research will assess the impact of these institutional reforms on the dynamics of farm productivity. It will measure growth in farm productivity in these villages, the extent to which such growth in different size categories was driven by diffusion of high yielding rice varieties, diversification into cash crops, changes in landownership, tenancy or sharecropper status, supplies of credit, fertilizer, seeds, irrigation by local governments, after controlling for changes in rainfall and other environmental factors. The direct and indirect effect of the land reform and supply of farm inputs on farm productivity and rural wages can then be evaluated, after controlling for alternative potential explanations for agricultural growth such as changing prices or patterns of social learning. This research will provide a better understanding of the link between politics, decentralized decision making, agricultural productivity growth, and poverty eradication in low-income countries.

了解政治与经济政策之间的关系对于了解低收入国家的发展进程至关重要。本研究将研究印度西孟加拉邦的经验，该邦在过去四分之一个世纪里开展了一系列基于土地改革和农业部门分权治理的制度改革。除了以农业为重点外，这些改革与这一时期许多发展中国家发生的“华盛顿共识”式的政策改革不同，因为它们明确旨在减少贫困：其主要推动力是重新分配资产并改善向人民提供公共服务。贫穷的。伴随改革而来的是农业产量的快速增长、高产水稻品种的推广以及农民种植经济作物的多样化。该研究将基于已收集的 89 个西孟加拉邦村庄样本的详细微观数据，涵盖土地改革、民选地方政府的活动、人口结构演变、土地分配、教育、职业和种姓以及不同规模农场的生产。 研究解决的第一个问题涉及土地改革的主要政治动机。他们是受到执政的左翼政党的政治意识形态的驱使，还是受到选举竞争的压力，或者是地主精英的权力削弱而阻碍了此类改革？它还将评估土地改革对改变这些村庄内土地所有权分配的影响（相对于市场交易和家庭分裂的影响）。研究的第二部分将评估地方政府实施的各种农业投入和发展计划的扶贫目标，以推断它们对穷人的政治责任程度。结合第一部分的研究，本文将尝试实证评估土地改革对于确保分权计划反贫困成功的重要性。 研究的第三部分也是最后一部分将评估这些制度改革对农业生产力动态的影响。它将衡量这些村庄农业生产力的增长，不同规模类别的增长在多大程度上是由高产水稻品种的扩散、经济作物多样化、土地所有权、租赁或佃农地位的变化、信贷供应、化肥推动的。控制降雨量和其他环境因素的变化后，由地方政府进行种植、种子、灌溉。在控制了农业增长的其他潜在解释（例如价格变化或社会学习模式）后，可以评估土地改革和农业投入品供应对农业生产率和农村工资的直接和间接影响。这项研究将有助于更好地理解低收入国家政治、分散决策、农业生产力增长和消除贫困之间的联系。