Impoverishment, technology and growth in rural India

This paper seeks to demonstrate that the effects of the introd uction of new (Green Revolution) agriculture technology in rural Indi a were highly ambiguous. Based on an analysis of rural households und ertaken between 1968 and 1971, the paper shows that a nonnegligible number of households became poorer. It is argued that a key reason for this was the fact that large cultivators were able to benefit dispro portionately from the growth process unleased by the new technology. It is conjectured, on the basis of more recent evidence, that there was a weakening over time in some of the causal mechanisms making for impoverishment. Copyright 1987 by Oxford University Press.