Agricultural growth, poverty reduction and agro-ecological zones in India: an ecological fallacy?

摘要

In an article in this journal that is part of an oevre that has been widely cited Shenggen Fan, Peter Hazel and T. Haque (2000a) present evidence that government investments in India now have greater effects on poverty in rainfed than irrigated regions. This note suggests that parts of the methodology on which this claim is based are unclear and possibly suffer from an ecological fallacy. Even after clarification of their method by the authors, some doubts remain as to whether the results quoted support the original claim