ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF (PhD admission and fellowship) · India · National Testing Agency for ICAR
Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papersHow farm produce moves from field to consumer, who takes what share, how markets are regulated and how prices behave over seasons and places.
In the exams: agricultural master's entrance examinations, agricultural economics and agribusiness (heavy); agricultural economics PhD entrance and fellowship examinations, marketing and prices (heavy); agricultural scientist eligibility tests (heavy); agricultural development bank officer recruitment and agricultural field officer recruitment in banking (present)
How our questions for ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF spread across the units of Agricultural Marketing & Price Analysis. Difficulty: 0 easy, 17 medium, 25 hard.
| Seasonal and spatial price variation | 10 | |
| Agricultural exports | 6 | |
| Structure-conduct-performance paradigm | 4 | |
| Agricultural price policy | 4 | |
| Buffer stocks and price stabilisation | 4 | |
| Marketing channels and price spread | 3 | |
| Marketable and marketed surplus | 2 | |
| Price commissions and parastatal marketing agencies | 2 | |
| Marketing efficiency | 2 | |
| Marketing in a developing economy | 1 | |
| Regulated markets and marketing boards | 1 | |
| Cooperative marketing | 1 | |
| Marketing finance | 1 | |
| IT in agricultural marketing and electronic trading platforms | 1 |
Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.
In dual-economy models of development such as Lewis's, why does agricultural marketing matter for structural transformation?
C. The marketed surplus of food must reach the growing non-farm workforce without a sharp rise in food prices
Industrial expansion in these models draws labour from agriculture; if the marketed surplus does not grow and move efficiently to towns, food prices and hence industrial wages rise, choking transformation. Marketing complements, not replaces, productivity growth.
Under what condition can the marketed surplus of a subsistence farm household respond negatively to a rise in the price of its crop?
A. When the household sells only to meet a fixed cash need, so a higher price lets it meet that need by selling less
If the cash need is fixed, sales x price = constant, so a higher price reduces the quantity sold. Highly elastic output or falling own-consumption would both make the response more positive, not negative. Empirical studies in South Asia and elsewhere found the aggregate response positive.
In SCP analysis of a regulated market, which of the following is an element of CONDUCT rather than structure or performance?
C. Commission agents agreeing among themselves not to bid above a set price
Conduct is behaviour: pricing, bidding and collusion. The number of traders and entry barriers are structure; margins relative to cost are a measure of performance.
The main criticism of the SCP paradigm associated with Demsetz and the Chicago school is that:
D. High concentration may result from the superior efficiency of large firms rather than cause market power
If efficient firms grow and capture share, concentration and profit are correlated because both reflect efficiency, not collusion. This reverses the causal reading of the concentration-profit relationship.
Economists who criticised regulated first-sale markets, such as the licensed market yards of South Asia, most often pointed to which problem?
A. Licensing and compulsory sale in notified yards created entry barriers that let a few agents dominate local markets
Restricting first sale to licensed agents in notified yards reduced competition. The other options describe the opposite of the problems usually documented.
In a cobweb market, inverse demand is P = 100 -2Q and inverse supply (based on last season's price) is P = 10 + 1.5Q. Starting slightly away from equilibrium, the price-quantity path will:
C. Diverge, as supply is flatter than demand
The ratio of slopes |-2.0|/1.5 = 1.33 > 1 means each deviation is multiplied by 1.33 each season (checked by iterating the model), so the path explodes. A steeper demand curve is exactly the divergent case, not the convergent one.
China's minimum purchase price policy for grains was introduced for:
D. Rice from 2004 and wheat from 2006
Minimum purchase prices started for rice in 2004 and wheat in 2006, implemented by state reserve buying. Maize was under a temporary reserve programme that was replaced by market pricing plus producer subsidies in 2016.
The domestic wholesale price of a commodity is 22,000 currency units/t and its import parity price at the same market is 20,000 currency units/t. What are the nominal protection coefficient and its interpretation?
D. 1.10; producers are protected by 10%
NPC = domestic / border = 22,000/20,000 = 1.10. NPC above one means domestic prices exceed world-parity prices, i.e. protection; nominal rate of protection = 10%. Inverting the ratio reverses the conclusion.
Ten here, 42 in the app. The Laisha app has every practice question we have written to ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF in this subject, marked as you go, with timed papers, a jump-to-unanswered list and a certificate when you pass at 70 per cent.
Free for ten days, then one subscription of US$10 a month. We would rather say so here than have you find it later.
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