Regional Variation and Cereal Production in India
25 Pages Posted: 27 Feb 2005
Date Written: January 2005
Abstract
This paper analyzes the agricultural scenario in India by estimating a system of production functions for five major cereal crops (such as wheat, rice, maize, bajra and jowar), using a Translog specification instead of the more commonly used Cobb-Douglas (CD) specification. Our estimation methodology employs a Seemingly Unrelated Regressions in a panel data set up, which allows for cross equation correlation. We use district level data for 13 major states from 1966-1967 to 1994-1995. We examine the inter-regional heterogeneity using four kinds of dummy variables, viz. District dummy, state dummy, production function dummy and agro-ecological dummy. The result indicates presence of non-linear effects of various inputs on the yields. Our results show the significance of regional differences in terms of production system and agro-ecological climates.
Keywords: Production function, Indian agriculture, translog function
JEL Classification: C33, D24, Q10
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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