NABARD Manager Grade B · India · National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development
Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papersHow economies grow and develop, what part agriculture plays as they transform, and how farm, trade, food, fiscal and climate policies differ across the world's agricultural economies, compared through cases from every continent.
In the exams: Economic and social issues papers in agricultural development bank and central bank officer recruitment (heavy); agricultural economics PhD entrance and fellowship examinations, development and policy units (heavy); agricultural, food and development policy modules in master's programmes on several continents (present)
How our questions for NABARD Manager Grade B spread across the units of Economic Development and Agricultural Economies of the World. Difficulty: 24 easy, 35 medium, 8 hard.
| Public finance and monetary basics | 9 | |
| Measuring growth and development | 7 | |
| Food security and nutrition | 7 | |
| Development institutions: World Bank, IMF, FAO and IFAD | 7 | |
| Poverty and inequality | 6 | |
| Rural labour, migration and remittances | 6 | |
| Structural transformation and the role of agriculture | 5 | |
| Comparative development paths | 5 | |
| Agricultural policy regimes and producer support | 5 | |
| Agricultural trade and the WTO | 4 | |
| Country case comparisons | 4 | |
| Economics of climate change and natural resources | 2 |
Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.
China's rural reforms that returned production decisions to farm households on collectively owned land, beginning in 1978, are known as the:
B. household responsibility system
The household responsibility system let households contract collective land, deliver a quota and sell the rest at market prices; output and rural incomes rose sharply in the early 1980s. The Great Leap Forward (1958) and the people's communes were the collectivised system the reform replaced.
Further reading: Laisha manual: Economic Development and Agricultural Economies of the World; Todaro and Smith, Economic Development; OECD PSE Manual; WTO Agreement on Agriculture; FAO SOFI
The annual report The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World is published jointly by:
C. FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO
SOFI is a joint publication of the three Rome-based agencies (FAO, IFAD, WFP) with UNICEF and WHO. The OECD and FAO jointly publish the Agricultural Outlook, a different report.
Further reading: Laisha manual: Economic Development and Agricultural Economies of the World; Todaro and Smith, Economic Development; OECD PSE Manual; WTO Agreement on Agriculture; FAO SOFI
Mexico's Progresa (1997) and Brazil's Bolsa Família (2003) are best described as:
B. conditional cash transfers tied to schooling and health visits
Both pay cash to poor families on condition that children attend school and the family attends health check-ups. Public works guarantees (such as Ethiopia's PSNP or rural employment guarantees), input vouchers (such as Malawi's) and ration systems are different instruments.
Further reading: Laisha manual: Economic Development and Agricultural Economies of the World; Todaro and Smith, Economic Development; OECD PSE Manual; WTO Agreement on Agriculture; FAO SOFI
In a multidimensional poverty index, 20 per cent of people are multidimensionally poor (H = 0.20) and the poor are deprived on average in 45 per cent of the weighted indicators (A = 0.45). The MPI is:
D. 0.09
MPI = H × A = 0.20 × 0.45 = 0.09. 0.65 adds them, 0.25 subtracts them, and 0.44 divides H by A.
Further reading: Laisha manual: Economic Development and Agricultural Economies of the World; Todaro and Smith, Economic Development; OECD PSE Manual; WTO Agreement on Agriculture; FAO SOFI
Since about 1990 the largest fall in the number of people in extreme poverty has occurred in:
D. East Asia, led by China
East Asia, led by China, accounted for most of the global decline in extreme poverty, followed by South Asia. Extreme poverty is now increasingly concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and in fragile and conflict-affected states.
Further reading: Laisha manual: Economic Development and Agricultural Economies of the World; Todaro and Smith, Economic Development; OECD PSE Manual; WTO Agreement on Agriculture; FAO SOFI
The Maastricht Treaty reference values for European Union member states' public finances are:
A. a general government deficit of 3 per cent and debt of 60 per cent of GDP
The Maastricht criteria, carried into the Stability and Growth Pact, set reference values of 3 per cent of GDP for the deficit and 60 per cent for gross debt. The other combinations are not EU rules.
Further reading: Laisha manual: Economic Development and Agricultural Economies of the World; Todaro and Smith, Economic Development; OECD PSE Manual; WTO Agreement on Agriculture; FAO SOFI
Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme, launched in 2005, mainly provides:
A. regular transfers to food-insecure households, mainly for public work
PSNP replaced emergency food appeals with predictable transfers, mostly paid for work on community projects such as soil and water conservation, with direct support for those unable to work. It is a safety net, not an input subsidy, insurance product or price guarantee.
Further reading: Laisha manual: Economic Development and Agricultural Economies of the World; Todaro and Smith, Economic Development; OECD PSE Manual; WTO Agreement on Agriculture; FAO SOFI
Which data source is the standard international database for agricultural production, trade and land use by country?
D. FAOSTAT
FAOSTAT, maintained by FAO, covers production, trade, land use, inputs and food balances for nearly all countries. The IMF's WEO covers macroeconomic projections; Trade Policy Reviews are country policy reports; the HDR covers human development indicators.
Further reading: Laisha manual: Economic Development and Agricultural Economies of the World; Todaro and Smith, Economic Development; OECD PSE Manual; WTO Agreement on Agriculture; FAO SOFI
As an economy grows richer, the share of agriculture in its total employment typically:
D. falls
Structural transformation moves labour out of agriculture as farm productivity rises and non-farm jobs expand; in high-income economies farming employs only a few per cent of workers.
Further reading: Laisha manual: Economic Development and Agricultural Economies of the World; Todaro and Smith, Economic Development; OECD PSE Manual; WTO Agreement on Agriculture; FAO SOFI
In many low-income agricultural economies, measured open unemployment is low while poverty is high. The best explanation is that:
A. the poor cannot afford idleness, so they take low-productivity work
Without unemployment benefits, the poor work at whatever is available, often in low-productivity self-employment or casual farm work, so the problem shows up as underemployment and working poverty rather than open unemployment. Surveys include agricultural workers, and minimum wages rarely cover informal work.
Further reading: Laisha manual: Economic Development and Agricultural Economies of the World; Todaro and Smith, Economic Development; OECD PSE Manual; WTO Agreement on Agriculture; FAO SOFI
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