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on Central and Western Asia |
| By: | Sumon Kumar Bhaumik; Manisha Chakrabarty |
| Abstract: | Few researchers have examined the nature and determinants of earnings differentials among religious groups, and none has been undertaken in the context of conflict-prone multi-religious societies like the one in India. We address this lacuna in the literature by examining the differences in the average (log) earnings of Hindu and Muslim wage earners in India, during the 1987-2004 period. Our results indicate that education differences between Hindu and Muslim wage earners, especially differences in the proportion of wage earners with tertiary education, are largely responsible for the differences in the average (log) earnings of the two religious groups across the years. By contrast, differences in the returns to education do not explain the aforementioned difference in average (log) earnings. Citing other evidence about persistence of educational achievements across generations, however, we argue that attempts to narrow this gap using quotas for Muslim households at educational institutions might be counterproductive from the point of view of conflict avoidance. |
| Keywords: | earnings gap, education, decomposition, religion |
| JEL: | J31 J15 I28 |
| Date: | 2007–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wdi:papers:2007-858&r=cwa |
| By: | Sumon Bhaumik; Shubhasish Gangopadhyay; Shagun Krishnan |
| Abstract: | Productivity growth has long been associated with, among others, contestability of markets which, in turn, is dependent on the ease with which potential competitors to the incumbent firms can enter the product market. There is a growing consensus that in emerging markets regulatory and institutional factors may have a greater influence on a firm’s ability to enter a product market than strategic positions adopted by the incumbent firms. We examine this proposition in the context of India where the industrial policies of the eighties and the nineties are widely believed to be pro-incumbent and procompetition, respectively, thereby providing the setting for a natural experiment with 1991 as the watershed year. In our analysis, we also take into consideration the possibility that the greater economic federalism associated with the reforms of the nineties may have affected the distribution of industrial units across states after 1991. Our paper, which uses the experiences of the textiles and electrical machinery sectors during the two decades as the basis for the analysis, finds broad support for both these hypotheses. |
| Keywords: | Entry, Institutions, Regulations, India, Textiles, Electrical Machinery, Reforms |
| JEL: | L11 L52 L64 L67 O14 O17 |
| Date: | 2006–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wdi:papers:2006-843&r=cwa |
| By: | Sumon Bhaumik; Suchismita Bose |
| Abstract: | The impact of expiration of derivatives contracts on the underlying cash market – on trading volumes, returns and volatility of returns – has been studied in various contexts. We use an AR-GARCH model to analyse the impact of expiration of derivatives contracts on the cash market at the largest stock exchange in India, an important emerging capital market. Our results indicate that trading volumes were significantly higher on expiration days and during the five days leading up to expiration days (“expiration weeks”), compared with nonexpiration days (weeks). We also find significant expiration day effects on daily returns to the market index, and on the volatility of these returns. Finally, our analysis indicates that it might be prudent to undertake analysis of expiration day effects (or other events) using methodologies that model the underlying data generating process, rather than depend on comparison of mean and median alone. |
| Keywords: | derivatives contracts, expiration day effect, India |
| JEL: | G14 |
| Date: | 2007–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wdi:papers:2007-863&r=cwa |
| By: | Balázs Égert |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the effectiveness of foreign exchange interventions in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey using the event study approach. Interventions are found to be effective only in the short run when they ease appreciation pressures. Central bank communication and interest rate steps considerably enhance their effectiveness. The observed effect of interventions on the exchange rate corresponds to the declared objectives of the central banks of Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and perhaps also Romania, whereas this is only partially true for Slovakia and Turkey. Finally, interventions are mostly sterilized in all countries except Croatia. Interventions are not much more effective in Croatia than in the other countries studied. This suggests that unsterilized interventions do not automatically inuence the exchange rate. |
| Keywords: | central bank intervention, communication, foreign exchange intervention, verbal intervention |
| JEL: | F31 |
| Date: | 2006–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wdi:papers:2006-846&r=cwa |
| By: | Muhammad Arshad Khan (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad); Abdul Qayyum (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad) |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically investigates the impact of trade and financial liberalisation on economic growth in Pakistan using annual observations over the period 1961-2005. The analysis is based on the bound testing approach of cointegration advanced by Pesaran, et al. (2001). The empirical findings suggest that both trade and financial policies play an important role in enhancing economic growth in Pakistan in the long-run. However, the short-run responses of the real deposit rate and trade policy variables are very low, suggesting further acceleration of the reform process. The feedback coefficient suggests a very slow rate of adjustment towards long-run equilibrium. The estimated equation remains stable over the period of study as indicated by CUSUM and CUSUMQ stability tests. |
| Keywords: | Trade Liberalisation, Financial Development, Economic Growth, Bound Test |
| JEL: | F43 G10 O10 C22 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:wpaper:2007:19&r=cwa |
| By: | Kırdar, Murat G.; Dayıoğlu, Meltem; Tansel, Aysıt |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of sibship size, birth order and sibling sex composition on children’s school enrollment in urban Turkey. Moreover, we examine how the effects of these variables vary by household income and the gender of the children. We utilize an instrumental variables estimation method in order to address parents’ joint fertility and schooling decisions where we use twin-births as instruments. In addition, we generate careful measures for birth order and siblings’ sex composition in order to purge the impact of these variables from that of sibship size. We find no causal impact of sibship size on school enrollment. However, there is evidence for a parabolic impact of birth-order where middle-born children fare worse. The parabolic impact of birth order is more pronounced in poorer families. Sex composition of siblings matters only for female children. A higher fraction of older male siblings decreases the enrollment probability of female children in poorer households. In the wealthiest families, on the contrary, a higher fraction of male siblings increases the enrollment probability of female children. The finding that birth order and sibling sex composition matters more for poorer households suggests that scarce financial resources are the underlying cause of the sibling composition effects. |
| Keywords: | Educational Attainment; Sibship Size; Birth Order; Sibling Sex Composition; Instrumental Variables |
| JEL: | J10 I21 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:2755&r=cwa |
| By: | Asma Hyder (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad) |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits responses on the stated preferences for public sector jobs among a sample of unemployed in Pakistan to inform on the existence of public sector job queues. The empirical approach allowed job preference to influence unemployment duration. The potential wage advantage an unemployed individual would enjoy in a public sector job was found to exert no independent influence on the stated preference indicating that fringe benefits and work conditions are perhaps more important considerations. The stated preference for a public sector job was found to be associated with higher uncompleted durations. The estimated effect suggests that, on average and controlling for education and other characteristics, those unemployed who stated a preference for public sector jobs had higher uncompleted durations of between four and six months. This finding was taken to confirm that there are long queues for public sector jobs in Pakistan. |
| Keywords: | Wage Differentials, Wage Structure, Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search |
| JEL: | J31 J64 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:wpaper:2007:20&r=cwa |