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on Central and Western Asia |
| By: | Muhammad Akram (International Islamic University, Islamabad.); Faheem Jehangir Khan (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad.) |
| Abstract: | The study has been carried out to measure the incidence of government spending on health in Pakistan at provincial, both rural and urban level; using the primary data of the Pakistan Social Standard Living Measures Survey (PSLM), 2004-05, and by employing the three-step Benefit Incidence Approach (BIA) methodology. The paper reviews the national policies emphasising health services as well as the trend in access to and public sector spending on health care facilities in Pakistan. The study explores the inequalities in resource distribution and service provision against the government health expenditures. The rural areas of Pakistan are the more disadvantaged in the provision of the health care facilities. The expenditures in health sectors are overall regressive in rural Pakistan as well as at provincial and regional levels. Mother and Child subhead is regressive in Punjab and General Hospitals and Clinics are regressive in all provinces. Only the Preventive Measures and health facilities sub-sector is progressive in Pakistan. Public health expenditures are pro-rich in Pakistan. |
| Keywords: | Health, Expenditure, Public Policy, Gini, Concentration Coefficient, Mother and Child, Preventive Measures, Hospital and Clinics |
| JEL: | H51 H53 I11 I18 I38 O18 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:wpaper:2007:32&r=cwa |
| By: | Abbas, Qaisar; Foreman-Peck, James (Cardiff Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates and interprets returns to education for three sub-sectors of labour market by gender in Pakistan, using the most recent data set of Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) Survey 2004-05. The results show two distinctive features of Pakistani education, the high apparent returns to female education outside agriculture, and the remarkable increase of returns with successive levels of education, are to be explained primarily by two departures from the basic Mincer model; generally poor quality primary schooling and family unwillingness to invest in female education because of lack of earning opportunities. There is some signaling in Pakistani education investment but mainly the education is productivity-enhancing investment in human capital, according to a comparison of self-employed and paid employed earnings equations. Returns to public spending of education are extremely high, suggesting very considerable state underinvestment. The policy challenge is in the low wages and high education in the female paid employment sector, and the low participation rate. |
| Keywords: | Rates of return; gender; occupation; Pakistan |
| JEL: | J16 J18 J24 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2007/24&r=cwa |
| By: | Mengistae, Taye; Honorati, Maddalena |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates a dynamic business growth equation on a sample of small-scale manufacturers. The results suggest that excessive labor regulation, pow er shortages, and problems of access to finance are significant influences on industrial growth in India. The expected annual sales growth rate of an enterprise is lower where labor regulation is greater, power shortages are more severe, and cash flow constraints are stronger. The effects of each of the three factors on business growth seem also to depend on a fourth element, namely, corruption. Specifically, labor regulation affects the growth only of enterprises for which corruption is not a factor in business decisions. By contrast, power shortages seem to be a drag on the growth only of enterprises self-reportedly held back by corruption. Lastly, sales growth is constrained by cash flow only in businesses that are not affected by labor regulation, power shortages, or corruption. The analysis uses corruption as a proxy for the quality of " property rights institutions " and considers labor regulation and small business financing as instances of " contracting institutions. " The findings on the interaction between corruption and other aspects of business environment then seems to indicate that the quality of property rights institutions exerts more abiding influence on economic outcomes than the quality of contracting institutions. Moreover, there might also be a hierarchy among contracting institutions in their effect on manufacturing growth. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Economic Growth,Access to Finance,Pro-Poor Growth and Inequality |
| Date: | 2007–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4338&r=cwa |
| By: | Faheem Jehangir Khan (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad.); Yaser Javed (Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.) |
| Abstract: | Provision of safe drinking water, adequate sanitation and personal hygiene are vital for the sustainable environmental conditions and reducing the incidence of diarrhoea, malaria, trachoma, hepatitis A & B and morbidity levels. Not having access to water and sanitation is a courteous expression for a form of deprivation that threatens life, destroys opportunity and undermines human dignity. Thus, investing in the provision of safe water supply and adequate sanitation is not only a development oriented strategy in itself, it can also yield other socio-economic benefits in terms of improved health status, quality of labour force and reduced burden-of-disease. Water and Sanitation is the neglected sector in Pakistan. Most of the households in Pakistan do not have access to safe drinking water and lack toilets and adequate sanitation systems. These poor people, mostly living in rural areas or urban slums, are not only deprived of financial resources, but they also lack admittance to basic needs such as education, health, safe water supply and environmental sanitation facilities. As of 2005, approximately 38.5 million people lacked access to safe drinking water source and approximately 50.7 million people lacked access to improved sanitation in Pakistan. By year 2015, if this trend continues, 52.8 million people will be deprived of safe drinking water and 43.2 million people will have no access to adequate sanitation facilities in Pakistan. It is not to calculate what percentages of population have access to a particular service so far and how much numbers of beneficiaries will be added by year 2015; it is to investigate that even if we meet the national and/or regional targets in Pakistan, how much population will still be deprived of these most basic human needs. |
| Keywords: | Drinking Water, Sanitation, Solid Waste, Waste Water, Public Policy, Public Expenditure, Hygiene |
| JEL: | C12 C13 C92 E61 E62 G18 H54 I18 I38 O11 O18 C82 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:wpaper:2007:30&r=cwa |
| By: | Christian Romer Lovendal (Agricultural and Development Economics Division, Food and Agriculture Organization) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the main findings of the vulnerable profiling work carried out in the State of Himachal Pradesh, India, as a mean to support the planning of food security and livelihoods promoting interventions at the state level. A similar study was undertaken in Orissa, India. The paper analyses the main characteristics and causes of food insecurity and vulnerability, seeking to identify who and where the vulnerable and food insecure are, why they are at risk of becoming food insecure and what options exist to reduce this risk. Using the sustainable livelihoods framework and collecting qualitative and quantitative data collection from four selected districts, the paper looks on the vulnerability of five livelihood groups, notably subsistence farming households, marginal commercial farming households, agricultural labouring households, migratory labouring households and pastoralist tribal households. Whilst Himachal Pradesh is comparably less food insecure, the paper shows that the state do face a range of challenges related to undernourishment and malnutrition. Anthropometric measures show that close to every second child under five in HP are underweight and 41 percent of adult women are anaemic, only slightly lower than the national figure. The study finds the main causes of food insecurity and vulnerability include increased fragmentation of land, limited or no access to welfare provisions and public services related to migration, weak infrastructure and lack of accessible credit institutions. Based on the findings of the analysis, the paper identifies key interventions to address the causes of food insecurity and vulnerability in Himachal Pradesh. These include increased investment in irrigation; improved extension services; ensuring social service provision and basic human welfare; and continued assurance of high levels of investment in constructing and maintaining rural infrastructure as a prerequisite for sustainable and broad-based economic growth. Finally, the paper includes recommendations on indicators to be monitored as part of a potential Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS) in Himachal Pradesh, focusing on a core set of indicators to be monitored at state and district level. |
| Keywords: | Vulnerability, Food Insecurity, Vulnerable Groups, Livelihoods Profiling, Himachal Pradesh, India. |
| JEL: | Q18 Q19 O20 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fao:wpaper:0722&r=cwa |
| By: | M. Idrees Khawaja (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad.) |
| Abstract: | The study employs Girton and Roper (1977) measure of exchange market pressure—sum of exchange rate depreciation and foreign reserves outflow, to examine the interaction between exchange market pressure and monetary variables, viz. domestic credit (Reserve Money) and interest rate. Evidence from impulse response functions suggests that domestic credit has remained the dominant tool of monetary policy for managing exchange market pressure. The increase in domestic credit upon increase in exchange market pressure (during 1991–98) is imprudent. The result suggests that fiscal needs/growth objective might have dominated the external account considerations during the span. Post 9/11 there is evidence of sterilised intervention in forex market. Interest rate has also weakly served as the tool of monetary policy during the hay days of foreign currency deposits (1991–98). The finding implies that for interest rate to work as tool of monetary policy vis-a-vis exchange market pressure a reasonable degree of capital mobility is called for. |
| Keywords: | Monetary Policy, Foreign Exchange |
| JEL: | E52 F31 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:wpaper:2007:31&r=cwa |
| By: | Tausch, Arno |
| Abstract: | 9 key conclusions are drawn: 1) First of all, Islam is hardly to blame for global development problems, let alone, Muslim migration is to blame for the failure of the European Lisbon process 2) it emerges that the European Union, the way it is constructed, is not the answer, but part of the very problem of stagnation and deficient development 3) in particular, the Lisbon target “low comparative price levels” contradicts the other Lisbon targets 4) Europe is characterized by an aging society and the pension crisis. But World Bank pension models will not propel economic growth and sustainable development 5) Opening up to global markets and unfettered globalization will not provide sustainable development to the European political economy 6) Many of the ills of the Muslim world are in reality caused by the crisis of modernization (“things get worse, before the get better”) 7) The “Limits to Growth” in the richest countries create serious social and ecological tensions 8) Urbanization negatively affects development in many ways 9) The positive effects of globalization are very limited While the analysis on world development 1990 – 2003, which contradicts in many ways Huntingtons famous book (1996), shows the detrimental effects of dependency, low comparative price levels and membership in the EU-15 on the social and ecological balances of countries of the world, we also tested the effects of our new data on Muslims per cent of total population on a comprehensive number of dependent variables of socio-economic development in 134 countries of the world, namely 1. economic growth, 1990-2003 (UNDP HDR, 2005) 2. freedom from political rights violations, 1998, and 2006 (Easterly, 2000-2002, and Freedom House, 2007) 3. Happy Planet Index (Happy Planet Organization) 4. Human development Index, 2005 (UNDP HDR 2005) 5. Gender development index 2004 (UNDP HDR, 2006) 6. Gender empowerment index, 2004 (UNDP HDR, 2006) 7. life expectancy, 1995-2000 (UNDP HDR 2000) 8. Life Satisfaction (Happy Planet Organization) 9. freedom from unemployment (UN statistical system website, social indicators) 10. eco-social market economy (GDP output per kg energy use) (UNDP HDR 2000) 11. the Yale/Columbia environmental sustainability index (ESI-Index), 2005 12. female economic activity rate as % of male economic activity rate (UNDP HDR 2000) 13. freedom from % people not expected to survive age 60 (UNDP HDR 2000) 14. freedom from a high ecological Footprint (Happy Planet Organization) 15. freedom from a high quintile ratio (share of income/consumption richest 20% to poorest 20%) (UNDP HDR 2005) 16. freedom from civil liberty violations, 1998, and 2006 (Easterly, 2002, and Freedom House, 2007) 17. freedom from high CO2 emissions per capita (UNDP HDR 2000) Ceteris paribus, Muslim culture even significantly and positively affects the human rights record, human development, gender development, and the ecological balances, and in general terms alleviates the problem of “structural violence”, measured in terms proposed by Galtung (1971). But there is a significant negative relationship between the percentages of Muslims per total population and the indicator: life satisfaction. Also it emerges that Muslim nations and countries with large Muslim population shares suffer dispropotrionately from heavy unemployment; which is closely connected to the problem of unequal exchange (low comparative international price levels). As to the causal directions of these relationships, the article argues in favor of cautious interpretations, and no final verdict is reached. In many ways, Muslim communities are to be regarded as socially stabilizing and growth enhancing factors. But the negative relationship between life satisfaction and Muslim population shares invites for a more thorough debate on happiness, based on classic Muslim philosophy or hanafist Euro-Islam, and against tendencies of a salafist reading of the scriptures. Our work also argues in favor of taking the problem of unequal exchange (low comparative price levels) more seriously as in the past. It is an underlying causal mechanism, creating unemployment in the Muslim world. At any rate, a liberal, tolerant and spiritual reading of the Holy Scriptures is recommended – much in the spirit of major religious Muslim figures as Professor Smail Balic from Bosnia and Professor Ali Bardakoglu from Turkey. |
| Keywords: | C21 - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; C43 - Index Numbers and Aggregation; Z12 – Religion; F59 - International Relations and International Political Economy: Other |
| JEL: | F5 Z12 F22 F15 F50 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:4698&r=cwa |
| By: | V. Thiruppugazh |
| Abstract: | This article examines the causes of urban earthquake vulnerability in Gujarat, based on the case study of Ahmedabad city which was affected in the 2001, Gujarat earthquake. This paper argues that the non-compliance of regulations which causes urban vulnerability cannot be corrected merely by additional regulations or increased enforcement. An enabling environment of compliance of regulations can be achieved only though good enforcement mechanism, integration of development with vulnerability reduction, good governance practices, awareness creation, partnerships and capacity building. |
| Keywords: | urban vulnerability, risk reduction, vulnerability reduction,earthquake vulnerability, regulations, mitigation |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:asarcc:2007-08&r=cwa |