While there is a plethora of research documenting a multitude of dimensions of the crop sector of Pakistan, the virtual absence of meaningful economic analysis of the dairy economy is surprising. No serious attempt has been made in the past to clarify the microlevel potential of this sector to impact rural economy. This paper is a pioneering attempt to provide an objective assessment of the state of Pakistan’s dairy and to point out areas of further research. The paper analyses some core issues, highlights the potential of this sector, and recommends the measures to be adopted towards such a goal.

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We conduct a field experiment offering graduated microcredit clients the opportunity to finance a business asset worth four times their previous borrowing limit. We implement this using a hire-purchase contract; our control group is offered a zerointerest loan. We find large, significant and persistent effects from asset finance contracts: treated microenterprise owners run larger businesses and enjoy higher profits; consequently, household consumption increases, particularly on food and children's education. A dynamic structural model with non-convex capital adjustment costs rationalises our results; this highlights the potential for welfare improvements through large capital injections that are financially sustainable for microfinance institutions.

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The key question addressed in the book is: Why have so many large-scale schemes to improve the human condition failed so badly? And James Scott is the right person to have asked this question. Scott is the Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Anthropology at Yale University. He is also the author of The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (1977), Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (1987), and Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (1992). All of the above have given him an excellent understanding of the nature of conflict in societies and the means of survival for the poor. Often the protagonists in the conflict have been people on one side and governments on the other. This is essential background for the book under review.