Economic Development In Palanpur Over Five Decades

Economic Development in Palanpur Over Five Decades This page intentionally left blank Economic Development in Palanpur Over Five Decades Edited by Peter Lanjouw Nicholas Stern CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD 1998 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Peter Lanjouw and Nicholas Stern 1998 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First Published 1998 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0-19-828832-8 Preface and Introduction Nicholas Stern 1. The Purpose of the Study A central concern of development economics is the analysis of changing economic and social institutions, the forces which shape them, and the outcomes in terms of the levels and distribution of living standards. The study of change requires observation of individuals and communities at different points in time. The study of living standards involves knowledge of the circumstances of individuals. Notwithstanding their fundamental place in the process of enquiry into economic development, such data are rare. The rarity is understandable since those who would observe have finite and changing lives and those to be observed may not stay still, remain alive, or wish to be followed.1 The study of Palanpur, a village in Moradabad District of west Uttar Pradesh in north India, forms the major source for the findings reported in this book. The study covers a series of five surveys starting in 1957–8 and ending in 1993, with the intervening surveys in 1962–3, 1974–5, and 1983–4. There is thus a survey for Palanpur in every decade since Indian independence almost fifty years ago. Whilst this book was not originally designed to mark the fiftieth anniversary, its publication will more or less coincide with that date. We hope that it might be seen as a modest contribution to a stock-taking of the economic and social changes of the last fifty years. The unusual nature of our data and work explains the combination of a preface and introduction here. The way the work programme was organized depended crucially on, and was closely interwoven with, the purpose of the study. The study placed a strong emphas