It is useful, though, to look at the details of the cost increases. Prices of agricultural inputs, including wages, have recorded a sharp increase during 2008-09 through 2012-13 in comparison with the preceding five years (2004-05 to 2007-08). Perhaps the most significant increase has been in rural wages. Nominal rural wages have grown at a sharp pace during the last five years. Because so many Indian workers are at subsistence wages, higher food prices do drive rural wages higher, and there is some evidence for this before 2007. From 2007 onwards, however, econometric tests suggest causality
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