Asymmetric Effects of Cereals Crops on Agricultural Economic Growth: A Case Study of India

The paper aims to examine the nonlinear effects of rice, wheat and maize crop production on agricultural growth in India from 1960 to 2019. Nonlinear autoregressive distributive lag (NARDL) and granger causality test are used to achieve the objective. Bound cointegration test establishes the long-run relationship among the wheat, rice, maize production, and agricultural growth in India. Wald test confirms the asymmetric effects of maize, rice and wheat production on agricultural growth in the long run. In the short run, only for the wheat crop, the asymmetric effect is found. In the long run, the NARDL model shows the positive relationship from the positive and negative shocks in maize and rice production to agriculture growth. While for the wheat crop, there is a positive relationship between a positive shock in wheat production and agriculture growth in the long run. Finally, based on the results, the study reveals that agriculture growth is asymmetrically affected by the maize, rice, and wheat crops. According to the findings of the study, when developing, agricultural policies, policy makers should take into account the nonlinear effects of crops in agriculture.