IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/millen/v16y2025i4p659-683.html

The Deadly Cost of Informal Lending: An Economic Model of Agrarian Suicide in Punjab

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel K. N. Johnson
  • Lakhwinder Singh
  • Kesar Singh Bhangoo
  • Tianyi (Lincy) Qin

Abstract

The Indian state of Punjab, which initially benefited greatly from the green revolution, has suffered from a dramatic rise in agrarian suicides for several decades. We use a carefully constructed sample of over 1,000 farmers in the epicentre, and build a three-stage model of agricultural production decisions across multiple input and multiple output choices, indebtedness from multiple sources and suicide via an IPWRA (inverse probability weighted regression adjustment) treatment model to trace the potential roots of the situation. Results show that the use of informal credit from commission agents by farmers accounts for 10 percentage points (or 20%) of all suicides in our sample, regardless of other household factors and choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel K. N. Johnson & Lakhwinder Singh & Kesar Singh Bhangoo & Tianyi (Lincy) Qin, 2025. "The Deadly Cost of Informal Lending: An Economic Model of Agrarian Suicide in Punjab," Millennial Asia, , vol. 16(4), pages 659-683, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:millen:v:16:y:2025:i:4:p:659-683
    DOI: 10.1177/09763996231180145
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09763996231180145
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09763996231180145?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cattaneo, Matias D., 2010. "Efficient semiparametric estimation of multi-valued treatment effects under ignorability," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 155(2), pages 138-154, April.
    2. Anupam Sarkar, 2020. "Agricultural Mechanization in India: A Study on the Ownership and Investment in Farm Machinery by Cultivator Households across Agro-ecological Regions," Millennial Asia, , vol. 11(2), pages 160-186, August.
    3. Cornelius Christian & Lukas Hensel & Christopher Roth, 2019. "Income Shocks and Suicides: Causal Evidence From Indonesia," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(5), pages 905-920, December.
    4. Singh, Karam & Singh, Sukhpal & Kingra, H.S., 2009. "Agrarian Crisis and Depeasantisation in Punjab: Status of Small/Marginal Farmers Who Left Agriculture," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 64(4), pages 1-19.
    5. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2007. "Inverse probability weighted estimation for general missing data problems," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 1281-1301, December.
    6. Maximilian Auffhammer & Tamma A. Carleton, 2018. "Regional Crop Diversity and Weather Shocks in India," Asian Development Review, MIT Press, vol. 35(2), pages 113-130, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
    2. Zheng, Yanqiao & Zhang, Xiaoqi & Zhu, Yu, 2021. "Overeducation, major mismatch, and return to higher education tiers: Evidence from novel data source of a major online recruitment platform in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    3. Sokbae Lee & Ryo Okui & Yoon†Jae Whang, 2017. "Doubly robust uniform confidence band for the conditional average treatment effect function," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(7), pages 1207-1225, November.
    4. Green, Colin & Østli, Vegard, 2025. "The effect of battery-electric vehicle ownership on transport demand and substitution between modes," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    5. Takeshima, Hiroyuki & Adeoti, Adetola & Popoola, Oluwafemi Adebola, "undated". "The Impact On Farm Household Welfare Of Large Irrigation Dams And Their Distribution Across Hydrological Basins: Insights From Northern Nigeria," Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy Research Papers 259574, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security (FSP).
    6. Chris Muris, 2020. "Efficient GMM Estimation with Incomplete Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 518-530, July.
    7. Otávio Bartalotti, 2013. "GMM Efficiency and IPW Estimation for Nonsmooth Functions," Working Papers 1301, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    8. Difang Huang & Jiti Gao & Tatsushi Oka, 2025. "Semiparametric single-index estimation for average treatment effects," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(6), pages 843-885, July.
    9. Benin, Samuel, 2016. "Impacts of CAADP on Africa’s agricultural-led development," IFPRI discussion papers 1553, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    10. Giorgio Brunello & Lorenzo Rocco, 2017. "The effects of vocational education on adult skills, employment and wages: What can we learn from PIAAC?," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 315-343, November.
    11. Joachim Binam & Frank Place & Antoine Kalinganire & Sigue Hamade & Moussa Boureima & Abasse Tougiani & Joseph Dakouo & Bayo Mounkoro & Sanogo Diaminatou & Marcel Badji & Mouhamadou Diop & Andre Babou , 2015. "Effects of farmer managed natural regeneration on livelihoods in semi-arid West Africa," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 17(4), pages 543-575, October.
    12. Guo, Rui & Zhang, Yujie & Chen, Kaihua & Wang, Yufei & Ning, Lutao, 2025. "Heterogeneous impact of green finance instruments on firms' green innovation novelty: Policy mix or mess?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    13. Farrell, Max H., 2015. "Robust inference on average treatment effects with possibly more covariates than observations," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 189(1), pages 1-23.
    14. Graham, Bryan S. & Pinto, Cristine Campos de Xavier, 2022. "Semiparametrically efficient estimation of the average linear regression function," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 226(1), pages 115-138.
    15. Liu, Y., 2018. "Determinants and impacts of marketing channel choice among cooperatives members: Evidence from agricultural cooperative in China," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275898, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Tobias A. Jopp, 2018. "On the economics of forced labour. Did the employment of Prisoners-of-War depress German coal mining productivity in World War I?," Working Papers 0132, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    17. Long, Wenjin & Pang, Xiaopeng & Dong, Xiao-yuan & Zeng, Junxia, 2020. "Is rented accommodation a good choice for primary school students' academic performance? – Evidence from rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    18. Kotsogiannis, Christos & Salvadori, Luca & Karangwa, John & Mukamana, Theonille, 2024. "Do tax audits have a dynamic impact? Evidence from corporate income tax administrative data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    19. Xinwei Ma & Jingshen Wang, 2018. "Robust Inference Using Inverse Probability Weighting," Papers 1810.11397, arXiv.org, revised May 2019.
    20. Wongmonta, Sasiwooth, 2023. "Revisiting the wage effects of vocational education and training (VET) over the life cycle: The case of Thailand," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:millen:v:16:y:2025:i:4:p:659-683. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.