ICRISAT Archival Report 2006 - The seedlings of success in the ...

village, to capture all migrants who returned to the villages. The third phase entailed finding the migrants at
their current place of residence.
The preliminary data has shown that the migrants are different in salient socio-economic characteristics. Most
notably, migrants can be identified by age, sex and educational attainment. Since educational attainment is
likely to be linked to unobservable ability and innovation, and has also been shown to contribute directly to
income growth (Mankiw et al, 1992), it is likely that the consumption and income trends for these individuals is
different from those who have stayed in the village. Very little is currently know about the migrants for nonmarital
purposes, who make up over half of those who have migrated, since we are unable to judge the size of
the attrition bias for these individuals due to the nature of migration; the new data will fill this lacuna.
In addition, much can be said for the impact of migration, in particular temporary or seasonal migration, at a
village level. For example, it would be interesting to study whether the decision to migrate has an impact of
child nutrition (Hildebrandt 2005) or child enrolment in educational institutions. McKenzie and Rappaport
(2002) study the impact of migration on educational attainment in Mexico; they find that the low-skilled
migration flows to the US have a negative impact on the number of years of schooling attained in given areas.
Another pertinent research question is the impact of migration on technology adoption – do migrants act as an
information flow, bringing knowledge and new technology home with them?
In ICRISAT, much has been done to ensure that the VLS dataset continues to expand in a methodologically
sound manner. Ensuring that all further split-offs are included in the village level surveys will allow the VLS
dataset to incorporate the dynamic elements of household formation, as well as ensuring that attrition bias is
reduced to a minimum. The tracking of migrants that is currently in taking the concept of reducing attrition bias
one step further, by providing a truly comprehensive data set.
Collaborating Institutions and Scientists:
Yale University : Reena Badiani
Oxford University : Stefan Dercon
ICRISAT
: KPC Rao, MCS Bantilan
Village Level Impacts of Trade liberalization: A look at Dokur
This paper is intended to be a village level analysis of trade liberalization. Methodological questions were
raised and data collection methods will be analyzed. The tenuous causal linkages between macro-level trade
policy and micro-level village impacts ought to be critically analyzed to determine in what manner current
theoretical frameworks are being extended. By using integrated regional and national commodity markets for
common crops some have translated relative price changes directly into village level analysis including impact
on income, employment, and migration. How is this meaningful? What social indicators ought to be reviewed?
What are some questions and conclusions that current analysis poses?
Conclusion: Kuiper and van Tongeren (2005) is perhaps the most robust model in the literature examined.
Current literature on village level impact analysis, at least amongst economists concerned with trade, are
developing new models that are more robust but also more real. Issues such as missing markets, imperfect
markets, or inadequate access to markets hinders the level of analysis given current data. New realms to explore
would include more complex analyses of social indicators such as the HDI. However, on the whole devising
tools that look beyond macro-level growth would give policy makers and scholars better insight into impacts,
furthering the decision making process.
Collaborating Institutions and Scientists:
Cornell University : Ammad Naeem Bahalim
ICRISAT
: KPC Rao, MCS Bantilan
The effects of major crop commodities on iron intake in rural India (1972 – 2002)
This research proposes to understand how the Green Revolution (GR), the agricultural programs which tripled
rice and wheat yields, affected iron intakes in India from 1983 until 2002. Although food balance sheets show
overall iron densities of available foods decreasing in South Asia during the period of the GR, it is not well
understood what foods contributed to this decline and how this translated into dietary intakes among different
segments of the population. A side effect of the sole promotion of rice crops was the concurrent decrease in per
capita production of pulses (beans, lentils, chickpeas, etc.), which are relatively rich in iron, given the
predominantly vegetarian diet. The specific aims of the project are to (1) describe trends in dietary intake of iron
35