Two essays on India: Green revolution revisited and determination and comparison of wages

First Essay. The new seeds, called high yielding variety seeds (or HYV seeds), were introduced in India in the early sixties. Using the data collected by the National Council of Applied Economic Research, two models are estimated--logit for the adoption of HYV wheat and rice seeds, and linear regression model for the proportion of land under HYV wheat and rice seeds for the users. The models include many social and economic variables. Both the models are estimated separately for all districts, IADP, IAAP, and non-IADP/IAAP districts. The IADP and IAAP were the government sponsored programs to enhance the adoption of HYV seeds. The proportion of land irrigated is found to be the most significant variable in the estimations of both models for all categories. The availability of tractor on hire in village is found to be significant in all estimates for the adoption of HYV wheat, and the land owned is found to be significant in all estimates for the adoption of HYV rice. The estimates of linear regression model indicate that small farmers devoted higher proportions of their lands to HYV seeds among users.Second Essay. In this essay the expanded version of the human capital model is estimated separately for the workers of public, private and joint sectors in Punjab (India). The results indicate that a large number of variables included in the model are significant for private sector workers but very few variables are significant for public and joint sector workers. On the average, the public sector workers earn more than twice as much as the private sector workers. The average monthly earnings of joint sector workers are much more closer to the private sector workers than to the public sector workers. In the second half of the essay, the differences between the average earnings of the public, private and joint sectors are decomposed into two parts: (i) the portion of the differences which exists because of the differences in endowments and personal characteristics of the workers of different sectors, and (ii) the portion of the differences which exists due to the differences in pay structures of the different sectors.