IRMA PGDM (Rural Management) selection · India · Institute of Rural Management Anand
Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papersIRMA PGDM (Rural Management) selection is a postgraduate admission exam run by Institute of Rural Management Anand, for candidates in India. Shortlisting on CAT, XAT or CMAT scores, then a Written Ability Test (200-300 words) and personal interview.
Official site: irma.ac.in.
We have not been able to confirm these details against the exam body's own specification, so fees, dates and pass marks are left out on purpose. Check the current format, eligibility, fees and dates on the official site.
Why institutions and transaction costs matter for how agricultural resources are used, and how agrarian institutions such as tenancy work.
Our 18 IRMA PGDM selection questions in this subject: 6 easy, 10 medium, 2 hard, across 8 units.
Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.
These 10 were written to IRMA PGDM selection and are not shown on any other exam's page.
Fresh fruit that must be processed within hours of harvest, so that a delay by either party destroys much of its value, illustrates
D. temporal specificity
Temporal specificity (emphasised by Masten) arises when the timing of performance is critical, as for perishables. Physical asset specificity refers to equipment designed for one use; dedicated assets to capacity built for one customer; brand-name capital to reputation.
Small growers in a remote village sell to a local trader at a lower price than the wholesale market price instead of taking produce to the wholesale market themselves. Which transaction-cost explanation fits best?
C. Fixed costs of searching and travelling are large per unit for small quantities
Fixed transaction costs (finding buyers, a day's travel, market information) do not rise with quantity, so their per-unit burden is highest for small sellers; selling locally at a lower price can still give a higher net price. Proportional costs do not fall per unit with lower volume; the Coase theorem and land specificity are not the issue.
A contract farmer's price is 20 per kg and the spot price at harvest rises to 24 per kg. The farmer has 100 kg. What is the one-season gain from side-selling the whole crop?
D. 400
Gain = (24 − 20) × 100 = 400. 2,400 is the total spot revenue and 2,000 the contract revenue, not the difference; 40 drops a zero from the quantity.
In contract farming, a production (resource-providing) contract differs from a marketing contract mainly because under a production contract
D. the buyer supplies key inputs and directs production, often retaining ownership of the product
Marketing contracts fix price or price formula, quantity, quality and timing but leave production decisions to the farmer. Production contracts add input provision and control (e.g. chicks and feed in broiler contracts), with the buyer often owning the product. Spot sales and land leases are different arrangements; agreeing only price and delivery date describes a marketing contract.
The term 'vertical coordination' in agricultural economics, describing how successive stages of a food chain are harmonised from spot markets to full integration, was introduced by
B. Mighell and Jones (1963)
Mighell and Jones's 'Vertical Coordination in Agriculture' (1963) introduced the concept. Hayami and Ruttan wrote on induced innovation; Stiglitz and Weiss on credit rationing; Schlager and Ostrom on bundles of property rights.
In Olson's theory, a benefit such as cheap input supply or insurance made available only to members who pay dues to a farmers' association is called
A. a selective incentive
Selective incentives are private benefits (or penalties) given only to contributors, which overcome free riding in latent groups. A collective good benefits all regardless of contribution; quasi-rent and residual claim are TCE and agency concepts.
A state irrigation department hands canal management to water user associations, but the associations collapse once the start-up grants end. Which explanation is most consistent with Ostrom's analysis?
C. The associations lacked rules made by members, accountable monitoring and graduated sanctions
Ostrom showed that user groups succeed when they make and adapt their own rules, monitor accountably and sanction in graduated ways; groups created top-down for a grant often lack these. She rejected both 'state only' and 'privatise only' panaceas; irrigation water is subtractable and excludable at cost, so it is a common-pool resource, not a pure public good.
Which of the following best describes common property as distinct from open access?
A. A defined group holds rights and duties over the resource and can exclude outsiders
Common property is a regime of group ownership with exclusion of non-members and internal rules. Unlimited entry describes open access; agency control describes state property; individual control with alienation describes private property.
A trader lends a farmer 10,000 for six months at 'zero interest' on condition that the farmer sells 50 quintals to him at 5 per cent below the market price of 2,000 per quintal. What is the implicit interest rate per six months?
A. 50 per cent
Implicit cost = 0.05 × 50 × 2,000 = 5,000; 5,000 / 10,000 = 50 per cent for six months (about 100 per cent a year in simple terms, so 100 per cent is the annual, not six-monthly, figure). 5 per cent is the price discount, not the interest rate; 10 per cent has no basis.
A processor supplies seed and fertiliser on credit to contract growers and deducts the cost from payment for the crop. In institutional terms this arrangement is
C. an interlinked credit-input-output contract that uses the crop sale to enforce repayment
The processor ties input credit to the output purchase and collects repayment out of the crop, which lowers enforcement costs — a modern interlinked contract. It is not spot trading (terms are linked in advance), not sharecropping (no land is leased), and growers have obligations, so it is not open access.
This plan follows where our questions actually fall, so the time goes where the marks are likely to be. It is our reading of the syllabus, not the exam body's weighting.
Read the manual chapters for these first and do every worked question you can find on them.
Aim for one sitting per unit, then mixed questions across them.
Learn the definitions, classifications and standard numbers; these units are more often recalled than worked.
Come back to these after a first pass, untimed, and read every explanation, including for the options you rejected.
Do these early in revision so they are fast on the day.
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