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on Central and Western Asia |
| By: | Kondo, Norio |
| Abstract: | The election system is the pillar of Indian democracy. The system consists of various levels of elections to the Lok Sabha (the House of Representatives of the Union), State Legislative Assemblies, and Panchayati Raj Institutions (local self-governing bodies under State Governments). This article includes a review of studies related to the elections of Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies conducted up to the present time. Studies are divided into those based on aggregate data and those based on survey data of the individual electorate. This division has the advantage of providing data that may be used in different analytical areas. Voter turnout and votes polled by party are the two main variables to be explained. This review article thus shows what has been explained in voting behaviour in India up to the present time. |
| Keywords: | India, Election, Review, Statistical analysis, Lok Sabha, State Legislative Assembly, Parliaments |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper98&r=cwa |
| By: | Shalizi, Zmarak |
| Abstract: | Part 1 of the paper reviews recent trends in fossil fuel use and associated externalities. It also argues that the recent run-up in international oil prices reflects growing concerns about supply constraints associated with declining spare capacity in OPEC, refining bottlenecks, and geopoli tical uncertainties rather than growing incremental use of oil by China and India. Part 2 compares two business as usual scenarios with a set of alternate scenarios based on policy interventions on the demand for or supply of energy and different assumptions about rigidities in domestic and international energy markets. The results suggest that energy externalities are likely to worsen significantly if there is no shift in China ' s and India ' s energy strategies. High energy demand from China and India could constrain some developing countries ' growth through higher prices on international energy markets, but for others the " growth retarding " effects of higher energy prices are partially or fully offset by the " growth stimulating " effects of the larger markets in China and India. Given that there are many inefficiencies in the energy system in both China and India, there is an opportunity to reduce energy growth without adversely affecting GDP growth. The cost of a decarbonizing energy strategy will be higher for China and India than a fossil fuel-based strategy, but the net present value of delaying the shift will be higher than acting now. The less fossil fuel dependent alternative strategies provide additional dividends in terms of energy security. |
| Keywords: | Energy Production and Transportation,Environment and Energy Efficiency,Energy and Environment,Energy Demand,Transport Economics Policy & Planning |
| Date: | 2007–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4209&r=cwa |
| By: | Angus Deaton (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | This paper builds a bridge between two literatures, that on purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates, which is an extension of national income accounting, and that on poverty measurement, which is based on household survey data on consumption expenditures. It also aims to serve as a manual for those who wish to calculate PPP price indexes using household surveys, particularly, although not exclusively, the PPP price indexes for the poor to be used to construct internationally comparable poverty lines. Because poverty analysts are often unfamiliar with PPP construction, PPP indexes are dealt with from something like first principles. The paper begins with the idea that PPP price indexes, like the usual domestic consumer price indexes, can be computed using weights from household surveys. Section 1 deals with the case of two countries, each with a set of consumer prices, and each with a household survey detailing expenditures on each good for a national sample of households. This first section is concerned with national aggregates, as in standard PPP comparisons, so that the household survey is used only to provide the national average consumption pattern. In this simplified two-country case, where the object of interest is a standard national PPP consumption comparison, it is possible to set up a framework that can be easily extended to deal with many countries and with poverty-weighting. In particular, standard errors are defined and formulas given. Prices are treated as known, so that the source of estimation variance is the sampling variability of the expenditure weights from the household survey, a sampling variability that depends on the sample size and on the survey design. A second type of standard error is distinguished which is new to the literature. In a world of perfect arbitrage and costless trade, relative prices would be the same in all countries, and all methods of computing PPP indexes would give the same answer. Deviations of prices from this ideal give rise to uncertainty about the index. Treating these deviations as random, as in the stochastic approach to price indexes, but with expenditure weights as non-stochastic, gives a second set of standard errors that reflect the uncertainty associated with the failure of arbitrage that is the fundamental reason why we need PPP index numbers. Formulas are given for these standard errors for the usual PPP price index numbers, including the Fisher and Törnqvist versions of the EKS index, as well as weighted CPD indexes. Section 2 provides illustrative calculations for a national consumer PPP index for food, fuel, alcohol, and tobacco for Indonesia in terms of India in 1999–2000. Section 3 extends the two-country analysis to the case of “poverty” PPPs, which are international price indexes calculated for people at or near the poverty line, under the requirement that the ratio of the two poverty lines is equal to the PPP index. It shows that, when the Engel curves take a specific but realistic functional form, there is a closed form solution for the poverty PPP index, and proposes using this case as a starting value for a non-parametric, but iterative, calculation. Section 4 applies this case to the Indonesian to Indian comparison. Section 5 extends the analysis in Sections 1 and 3 to the multiple country case, and Section 6 provides illustrative calculations of food and tobacco PPPs for India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_pppp_version_aug_06&r=cwa |
| By: | Jacob Funk Kirkegaard (Peterson Institute for International Economics) |
| Abstract: | This working paper evaluates the validity of available data on and the extent of the impact of offshoring on service-sector labor markets in the United States, EU-15, and Japan. A three-tier data validity hierarchy is identified. The impact of offshoring on employment in the three regions is found to be limited. Correspondingly, developing Asia is unlikely to experience large employment gains as a destination region. The paper highlights the case of the Indian IT industry, where the majority of job creation has been in local Indian companies rather than foreign multinationals. Domestic entrepreneurs have played a crucial role in the growth of the Indian IT-related service industry. However, increased tradability of services and associated skill bias in favor of higher skilled workers could have an uneven employment impact on developing Asia. Some high-skilled groups are benefiting and will continue to benefit dramatically from new employment opportunities and rising wage levels. Meanwhile, the same skill bias may eliminate many employment opportunities for unskilled or low-skilled groups in the region. Developing Asian countries therefore face a double educational challenge in the coming years: the need to simultaneously improve both primary aCreation-Date: 2006-06 |
| Keywords: | Service Sectors, Offshoring, Production Relocation, Data Source Validity, Automation, Highly Skilled Workers |
| JEL: | F23 J21 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iie:wpaper:wp07-2&r=cwa |
| By: | Selim, Sheikh (Cardiff Business School); Parvin, Naima |
| Abstract: | We estimate an institutional production function to capture incentive induced growth in total factor productivity (TFP) of rice production in Bangladesh. The incentive component of TFP assists in explaining farmers' response to incentives due to major policy reforms during 1980s and 1990s. |
| Keywords: | Bangladesh; Incentives; TFP |
| JEL: | C33 C51 O13 Q12 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2007/11&r=cwa |
| By: | Rim Chatti; AbdelRahmen El Lahga |
| Abstract: | This note extends the Ravallion and Huppi (1991) aggregate poverty change decomposition, to account for the distinct contribution of migration and differential natural population growth between sectors to the aggregate poverty change. We apply our decomposition to three LDCs. We find that accounting for sectoral difference in natural population growth has a considerable impact on national poverty change. |
| Keywords: | Poverty change, migration, population growth |
| JEL: | I32 R23 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:pmmacr:2007-14&r=cwa |