IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/2018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Land reform, poverty reduction and growth : evidence from India

Author

Listed:
  • Besley, Timothy
  • Burgess, Robin

Abstract

In recent times there has been a renewed interest in relationships between redistribution, growth and welfare. Land reforms have been central to strategies to improve the asset base of the poor in developing countries thought their effectiveness has been hindered by political constraints on implementation. In this paper we use panel data on the sixteen main Indian states from 1958 to 1992 to consider whether the large volume of land reforms as have been legislated have had an appreciable impact on growth and poverty. The evidence presented suggests that land reforms do appear to be associated with poverty reduction.

Suggested Citation

  • Besley, Timothy & Burgess, Robin, 1998. "Land reform, poverty reduction and growth : evidence from India," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2018, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:2018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/2018/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Dani Rodrik, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 465-490.
    2. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Newman, Andrew F, 1993. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 274-298, April.
    3. Hoff, Karla & Lyon, Andrew B., 1995. "Non-leaky buckets: Optimal redistributive taxation and agency costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 365-390, November.
    4. J. Behrman & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), 1995. "Handbook of Development Economics," Handbook of Development Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    5. Roland Bénabou, 1996. "Inequality and Growth," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1996, Volume 11, pages 11-92, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 600-621, June.
    7. Robert J. Barro, 1998. "Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522543, December.
    8. Datt, Gaurav & Ravallion, Martin, 1992. "Growth and redistribution components of changes in poverty measures : A decomposition with applications to Brazil and India in the 1980s," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 275-295, April.
    9. J. Behrman & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), 1995. "Handbook of Development Economics," Handbook of Development Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 4.
    10. Perotti, Roberto, 1996. "Growth, Income Distribution, and Democracy: What the Data Say," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 149-187, June.
    11. Lanjouw, Peter & Stern, Nicholas, 1998. "Economic Development in Palanpur over Five Decades," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288329.
    12. Gaurav Datt & Martin Ravallion, 1998. "Why Have Some Indian States Done Better than Others at Reducing Rural Poverty?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 65(257), pages 17-38, February.
    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. Martin Ravallion, 2013. "The Idea of Antipoverty Policy," NBER Working Papers 19210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Bergstrom,Katy Ann, 2020. "The Role of Inequality for Poverty Reduction," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9409, The World Bank.
    3. Michael P. Keane & Eswar S. Prasad, 2002. "Inequality, Transfers, And Growth: New Evidence From The Economic Transition In Poland," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 324-341, May.
    4. Josef ZweimüLler, 2000. "Inequality, Redistribution, and Economic Growth," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 1-20, March.
    5. Kirill Borissov & Stefano Bosi & Thai Ha-Huy & Leonor Modesto, 2017. "Heterogeneous Human Capital, Inequality and Growth: The Role of Patience and Skills," EUSP Department of Economics Working Paper Series 2017/03, European University at St. Petersburg, Department of Economics.
    6. Martin Ravallion, 2012. "Why Don't We See Poverty Convergence?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 504-523, February.
    7. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk, 2005. "The Role of Efficiency of Redistributive Institutions on Redistribution: An Empirical Assessment," MPRA Paper 17773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Kanbur, Ravi, 2000. "Income distribution and development," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 791-841, Elsevier.
    9. Daniele Checchi, 1999. "Inequality in Incomes and Access to Education. A Cross-Country Analysis (1960-90)," Working Papers 21, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised May 1999.
    10. Mcknight, Abigail, 2019. "Understanding the relationship between poverty, inequality and growth: a review of existing evidence," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103458, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Ravallion, Martin, 2001. "Growth, Inequality and Poverty: Looking Beyond Averages," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1803-1815, November.
    12. Reto Foellmi und Josef Zweim�ller, "undated". "Inequality and Economic Growth - European Versus U.S. Experiences," IEW - Working Papers 158, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    13. Easterly, William, 2007. "Inequality does cause underdevelopment: Insights from a new instrument," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 755-776, November.
    14. Bellettini, Giorgio & Berti Ceroni, Carlotta, 2007. "Income distribution, borrowing constraints and redistributive policies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 625-645, April.
    15. Ravallion, Martin, 2003. "Targeted transfers in poor countries : revisiting the tradeoffs and policy options," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3048, The World Bank.
    16. Guido Cozzi & Fabio Privileggi, 2009. "The fractal nature of inequality in a fast growing world: new version," Working Papers 2009_30, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    17. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2004. "From Physical to Human Capital Accumulation: Inequality and the Process of Development," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(4), pages 1001-1026.
    18. Joan Esteban & Debraj Ray, 2006. "Inequality, Lobbying, and Resource Allocation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 257-279, March.
    19. Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero, 2020. "Inequality affects long-run growth: Cross-industry, cross-country evidence," Working Papers 102, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    20. Bertola, Giuseppe, 2000. "Macroeconomics of distribution and growth," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 477-540, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    land reform; political economy; poverty; growth; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General

    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:ehl:lserod:2018. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    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.