The Long-run Development Impacts of Agricultural Productivity Gains: Â Evidence from Irrigation Canals in India
Presented by:
Douglas Gollin
Department of Economics
Tufts University
Friday, February 28, 2025
12:00 pm-1:15 pm
Taylor-Hibbard Seminar Room (Rm103)
We estimate the long-run effects of India's vast canal network, which provides irrigation water to 200+ million people. Canals reshaped Indian economic geography, with substantial economic changes both inside and outside of irrigated zones. Higher agricultural productivity raised population around irrigated villages, with no effect on village non-farm sectors. Structural transformation occurred almost exclusively through concentrated emergence and growth of towns. A model with mobile labor and urban non-farm productivity advantages rationalizes the findings. In the long run, the productivity effects of canals were equilibrated through the spatial reallocation of 50 million people, rather than through in situ structural transformation.