Replaced with revised version of paper 07/16/04.

Tracking the revolutionary changes in the Indian agricultural sector, it is quite clear that technology, institutions, and markets have had a very important role to play. Of course the public sector played a pivotal and catalytic role when India ushered in Green Revolution in late sixties and...

The South Asian countries are gradually diversifying with some inter-countryvariation in favor of high value commodities, namely fruits, vegetables, livestock andfisheries. Agricultural diversification is strongly influenced by price policy, infrastructuredevelopment (especially markets and...

Rice is the lifeline of almost 70% of the world's poor residing in Asia,where more than 90% of world rice production and consumption takes place. Ricetrade liberalization therefore has tremendous implications for poverty. The worldrice market is highly distorted, partly because of the high...

Despite the efforts of various economists and agricultural scientists in calling for more investments, funding for agricultural R&D has been stagnated for the last two decades in China. This will pose a great challenge for the China's agricultural sector. Productivity has leveled off, and...

Developing countries have to allocate limited government resources for rural areas among different investment activities and regions to achieve the twin goals of productivity growth and poverty alleviation. This is particularly important at a time when many countries are facing severe financial...

There have been competing arguments about the effect of public infrastructure on productivity in the literature. Level-based regressions generally show a much higher return to public capital than private capital, while difference-based regressions tend to find insignificant or even negative...

This book provides fresh insights into concepts, methods and new research findings on the causes of excessive food price volatility. It also discusses the implications for food security and policy responses to mitigate excessive volatility. The approaches applied by the contributors range from...