nep-cwa New Economics Papers
on Central and Western Asia
Issue of 2007‒01‒02
twenty-one papers chosen by
Nurdilek Hacialioglu
Open University
  1. Global integration of India's Money Market : Interest rate parity in India By Vipul Bhatt; Arvind Virmani
  2. Critical issues in India's services-led growth By Rashmi Banga
  3. Tripolar century: USA, China and India By Arvind Virmani
  4. Higher Education in India: Seizing the Opportunity By Sanat Kaul
  5. India-ASEAN Cooperation in Services: An Overview By Suparna Karmakar
  6. Household sector portfolio allocation in India By Sanghamitra Sahu; Arvind Virmani
  7. Current WTO Negotiations on Domestic Subsidies in Agriculture: Implications for India By Parthapratim Pal
  8. Patents legislation and international obligations: India By Mahima Puri; Anjali Varma
  9. Health Insurance for the poor in India: An analytical study By Rajeev Ahuja
  10. Post-MFA Adjustments in India's Textile and Apparel Industry: Emerging Issues and Trends By Meenu Tewari
  11. Revealed comparative advantage: An analysis for India and China By Amita Batra; Zeba Khan
  12. Impact on India of Tariff & Quantitative Restrictions under WTO By Bishwanath Goldar
  13. Micro-Insurance in India: Trends and strategies for further extension By Rajeev Ahuja; Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis
  14. Policy regimes, growth and poverty in India : Lessons of government failure and entrepreneurial success By Arvind Virmani
  15. Persistence in Infant Mortality: Evidence for the Indian States By Wiji Arulampalam; Sonia Bhalotra
  16. India - Pakistan Trade By Nisha Taneja
  17. From Farmers to Merchants, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History By Botticini, Maristella; Eckstein, Zvi
  18. The SPS and TBT Agreements: Implications for Indian Policy By Bibek Debroy
  19. Disciplining Voluntary Environmental Standards at the WTO: An Indian Legal Viewpoint By Samir R. Gandhi
  20. The Turkish Pension System:: Further Reforms to Help Solve the Informality Problem By Anne-Marie Brook; Edward Whitehouse
  21. Black Market and Official Exchange Rates: Long-Run Equilibrium and Short-Run Dynamics By Guglielmo Maria Caporale; Mario Cerrato
  1. By: Vipul Bhatt (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations); Arvind Virmani (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2005–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:164&r=cwa
  2. By: Rashmi Banga (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2005–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:171&r=cwa
  3. By: Arvind Virmani (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2005–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:160&r=cwa
  4. By: Sanat Kaul (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2006–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:179&r=cwa
  5. By: Suparna Karmakar (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2005–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:176&r=cwa
  6. By: Sanghamitra Sahu (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Rela); Arvind Virmani (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Rela)
    Date: 2005–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:157&r=cwa
  7. By: Parthapratim Pal (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2005–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:177&r=cwa
  8. By: Mahima Puri (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Rela); Anjali Varma (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Rela)
    Date: 2005–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:158&r=cwa
  9. By: Rajeev Ahuja (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2005–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:161&r=cwa
  10. By: Meenu Tewari (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2005–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:167&r=cwa
  11. By: Amita Batra (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations); Zeba Khan (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2005–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:168&r=cwa
  12. By: Bishwanath Goldar (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2005–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:172&r=cwa
  13. By: Rajeev Ahuja (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations); Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2005–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:162&r=cwa
  14. By: Arvind Virmani (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2005–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:170&r=cwa
  15. By: Wiji Arulampalam (University of Warwick and IZA Bonn); Sonia Bhalotra (University of Bristol, CSAE, QEH and CHILD)
    Abstract: This paper investigates the high correlation in infant mortality across siblings using microdata for each of the fifteen major states of India. The main finding is that, in thirteen of the fifteen states, there is evidence of a causal effect of a child death on the risk of death of the subsequent child in the same family (a scarring effect), which is identified after controlling for observed and unobserved heterogeneity at the family level. The two states in which evidence of scarring is weak are Punjab, the richest, and Kerala, the state that is most advanced in socio-economic terms. In the other states, scarring effects are large. Indeed, the only other covariate that has a marginal effect on mortality that is as big, or bigger, than the survival status of a preceding sibling is an indicator for mothers having attained secondary or higher levels of education. These results show that policies targeted at reducing infant mortality will have social multiplier effects through helping avoid the death of subsequent siblings. The size of the scarring effect depends upon the gender of the previous child in three states, in a direction consistent with son-preference. Comparison of other covariate effects across the states offers some new insights, there being no previous research that has compared the determinants of infant mortality across the Indian states.
    Keywords: persistence, siblings, infant mortality, state dependence, scarring, unobserved heterogeneity, dynamic random effects logit, gender, India
    JEL: J1 C1 I1 O1
    Date: 2006–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2488&r=cwa
  16. By: Nisha Taneja (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Abstract: Quantitative studies estimate that potential two way trade between India and Pakistan can be about 10 times than its rather unsatisfactory current level of $ 613 million. Moving towards realizing this trade potential is clearly in the interest of both countries and the region. In this context this study identifies areas of trade and investment co-operation between the two countries. On the basis of a survey conducted in three cities viz., Delhi, Mumbai and Amritsar the paper examines the characteristics of firms engaged in Indo-Pakistan trade. It also estimates existing transport arrangement between the two countries and the impact of all extant non-tariff barriers. The study suggests that the most important step towards enhancing trade would be to adopt the MFN principle as the current policy inhibits trade, lacks transparency and leads to high transaction costs. The study finds that transportation links between the two countries are inadequate and suggests that new rail and road links should be opened. Transaction costs of trading between India and Pakistan are high and can be lowered by implementing some rather simple policy measures that are spelled out in the paper. The study also examines recent developments in BIMSTEC, ASEAN and in Indo-Sri Lanka and Indo-Nepal trade agreements, and draws lessons to enhance Indo-Pakistan trade.
    Keywords: South Asia, India-Pakistan trade, commercial policy, MFN
    JEL: L6 L8 F13
    Date: 2006–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:182&r=cwa
  17. By: Botticini, Maristella; Eckstein, Zvi
    Abstract: From the end of the second century C.E., Judaism enforced a religious norm requiring Jewish fathers to educate their sons. We present evidence supporting our thesis that this change in the religious and social norm had a major influence on Jewish economic and demographic history. First, the high individual and community cost of educating children in subsistence farming economies (2nd to 7th centuries) prompted voluntary conversions, which account for a large share of the reduction in the size of the Jewish population from 4.5 million to 1.2 million. Second, the Jewish farmers who invested in education, gained the comparative advantage and incentive to enter skilled occupations during the vast urbanization in the newly developed Muslim Empire (8th and 9th centuries) and they actually did select themselves into these occupations. Third, as merchants the Jews invested even more in education---a pre-condition for the extensive mailing network and common court system that endowed them with trading skills demanded all over the world. Fourth, the Jews generated a voluntary diaspora by migrating within the Muslim Empire, and later to western Europe where they were invited to settle as high skill intermediaries by local rulers. By 1200, the Jews were living in hundreds of towns from England and Spain in the West to China and India in the East. Fifth, the majority of world Jewry (about one million) lived in the Near East when the Mongol invasions in the 1250s brought this region back to a subsistence farming and pastoral economy in which many Jews found it difficult to enforce the religious norm regarding education, and hence, voluntarily converted, exactly as it had happened centuries earlier.
    Keywords: human capital; Jewish economic and demographic history; migration; occupational choice; religion; social norms
    JEL: J1 J2 N3 O1 Z12 Z13
    Date: 2006–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6006&r=cwa
  18. By: Bibek Debroy (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2005–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:163&r=cwa
  19. By: Samir R. Gandhi (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2006–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:181&r=cwa
  20. By: Anne-Marie Brook; Edward Whitehouse
    Abstract: Recent social security reform has significantly improved the long-run sustainability of the pension system. However, the pension system continues to serve as an important barrier to a more rapid expansion of the formal-sector economy in two ways. First, early-retirement incentives (including severance payments) continue to push many incumbent formal sector workers into the informal sector, often at ages as young as 40-45. While new labour force entrants face a much higher retirement age, policies for incumbents are fiscally expensive, inequitable, and serve to swell the ranks of the informal sector. Second, even when the transition to the new pension rules is complete, net replacement rates will remain very high by OECD standards, requiring high social security contribution rates that make it too expensive for firms to employ low-skilled labour in the formal sector. Thus, further pension reform is one of the keys to overcoming Turkey’s economic duality. Finally, since the pension system does not cover the informal sector, it does little to alleviate poverty among the wider population of older people. This paper discusses a number of reforms that would increase the retirement age, reduce inter-generational inequities, and permit a significant cut in the tax wedge on labour, while better addressing old-age poverty concerns at all levels of income. <P>Le système des retraites en Turquie: : Les réformes supplémentaires pour aider à résoudre le problème de l’informalité <BR>La récente réforme de la sécurité sociale a amélioré largement la viabilité à long terme du système de retraite. Cependant, la structure de ce dernier reste un important obstacle à une expansion plus rapide de l’économie formelle, pour deux raisons. Premièrement, du fait des incitations à une retraite anticipée (telles que les indemnités de départ), de nombreux travailleurs du secteur formel continuent à rejoindre le secteur informel, souvent à un jeune âge comme 40-45 ans. Alors que les nouveaux entrants dans le marché du travail prendront leur retraite à un âge bien plus élevé, les politiques concernant les travailleurs déjà actifs sont coûteuses pour les finances publiques, ne sont pas équitables et nourrissent le secteur informel. Deuxièmement, même lorsque le passage aux nouvelles règles régissant les retraites sera achevé, les taux de remplacement nets seront encore très généreux par rapport aux niveaux observés dans la zone OCDE, avec des taux de cotisation élevés qui dissuadent les entreprises du secteur formel d’employer une main-d’oeuvre peu qualifiée. En conséquence, la poursuite de la réforme des retraites est fondamentale pour surmonter ce dualisme économique. Enfin, parce qu’il ne couvre pas le secteur informel, le système de retraite ne contribue guère à atténuer la pauvreté au sein de la population âgée. Ce chapitre examine plusieurs réformes qui repousseraient l’âge de la retraite, réduiraient les inégalités intergénérationnelles et feraient diminuer significativement le coin fiscal sur le travail, tout en répondant mieux aux préoccupations suscitées par la pauvreté des personnes âgées à tous les niveaux de revenu.
    JEL: D10 H55 J14 J18
    Date: 2006–12–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:44-en&r=cwa
  21. By: Guglielmo Maria Caporale; Mario Cerrato
    Abstract: This paper presents further empirical evidence on the relationship between black market and official exchange rates in six emerging economies (Iran, India, Indonesia, Korea, Pakistan, and Thailand). First, it applies both time series techniques and heterogeneous panel methods to test for the existence of a long-run relationship between these two types of exchange rates. Second, it tests formally the validity of the proportionality restriction implying a constant black-market premium. Third, it also analyses the short-run dynamic responses of both markets to shocks. Finally, it tries to shed some light on the determinants of the market premium. Evidence of slow reversion to the long-run equilibrium is found. Further, it appears that capital controls and expected currency devaluation are the two main factors affecting the size of the premium and determining the breakdown in the proportionality relationship.
    Keywords: black market and official exchange rates, panel cointegration, impulse response functions
    JEL: C23 F31
    Date: 2006
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1851&r=cwa
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