Growth and instability of agricultural exports of India: an empirical analysis Roy Baikunth* PG Department of Economics, College of Commerce, Arts and Science Patliputra University, Kankarbagh, Patna, 800020, Bihar, India *Email for correspondence: baikunthroy@gmail.com
Online published on 9 August, 2019. Abstract The study analyses trends in the exports of agricultural commodities from 1981 to 2010. The major agricultural exports chosen in the study were rice, wheat, tea, coffee, fruits, vegetables, cashew nuts, shelled spices, sugar, cotton, lint and tobacco unmanufactured. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) was calculated and a comparison between pre-and post-WTO export growth scenario was made. An export instability index was constructed for pre-and post-WTO period to measure instability in agricultural exports from India. The findings of the study suggested that agricultural exports have increased in the era of economic liberalization. However there were wide fluctuations across commodities validating the hypotheses that favourable policies had resulted in increase in agricultural exports and an increase in the value of agricultural exports was associated with high instability at the commodity level. Nevertheless the paper shows that aggregate agricultural exports do not reveal much instability validating the hypotheses that variations are perceptible at the commodity level. In other words variability in agricultural exports varies across commodities. Top Keywords Agricultural growth, export instability, WTO, liberalization, reforms. Top |