The present paper attempts to find out whether draught power is in fact a binding constraint on raising farm output to levels indicated in the Second Five Year Plan of Bangladesh. It also addresses itself to the question of the most appropriate way of relieving such a constraint if it exists. Information was collected from 360 farmers from five agro-ecologically distinct Zones of Bangladesh, who were interviewed weekly over a period of 17 months. The study demonstrates that the supply of draught power is indeed inadequate, in quality rather than quantity, and that it is distributed unevenly, so that the constraint is severe for poorer farmers, Tractorization is not found to be an appropriate solution. Rather, better feeding of the cattle, more efficient use of existing supply by improving implements and yoking systems, and minimum tillage techniques should be encouraged.
A short-run macro-econometric model for Bangladesh has been developed in this paper combining the elements of both demand-based and supply-bottleneck models. The parameter estimates have been derived using data for the period 1960-1979 (excluding 1971). Tests of significance of the estimated co-efficients seem to validate the model. Historical simulation also revealed that the model is capable of broadly explaining the workings of the Bangladesh economy. Since no policy simulation was carried out, no definitive conclusions can be reached at this stage about the policy implications of the model. Nevertheless, some tentative conclusions have been drawn on the basis of the signs and magnitudes of estimated co-efficients.
This paper has, as its opening premise, the proposition that any efficiency–comparative exercise relating to techniques coexisting in Bangladesh with varying mechanisation must explicitly seek to isolate technical efficiency from the price and allocation effects of social discrimination that handicap the cottage and small-scale producers. It then closely examines the nature of entrepreneurial acquisition of scarce resources so as to have a basis for isolating the market-structural versus the technical influences on observed relative efficiency. The study finds that the sample mills, who only have a modest edge over the smaller enterprises in cloth-output per loom in operation, have, due to their elaborate fixed assets, much higher comparative capital–net output ratio. The handloom units outclass the mills in the productivity of recurrent imported input, as also record much higher rates of surplus on the capital employed. The handloom method was found to remain markedly superior to the mill-method even after the effects of important imperfections of factor and product markets were accounted for.
An attempt is made in this paper to understand the dynamics of the relationship between population pressure and agricultural productivity examining the change in the level of land-man ratio with the change in the level of land yield of the districts in Bangladesh during the period 1961-64 to 1974-77. It is hypothesized that land-man ratio will be inversely related to agricultural yield. The hypothesis is supported by data. However, this relationship becomes weak when districts are classified according to their yield levels. But the growth of labour force seems to be related with the growth of output, indicating a dynamic relationship between yield and population pressure. However, the direction of causation is not necessarily from ‘population pressure’ to higher productivity; rather higher productivity also leads to higher density by attracting migrants from other non-developing areas. This movement of population from poor agricultural districts to districts of better agricultural performance has resulted in higher population density in high growth rate districts and lower density in low and negative growth rate districts.
