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on Central and Western Asia |
| By: | Bayly, C. A. |
| Abstract: | This paper concerns the institutional origins of economic development, emphasizing the cases of nineteenth-century India and Africa. Colonial institutions-the law, western style property rights, newspapers and statistical analysis-played an important part in the emergence of Indian public and commercial life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These institutions existed in the context of a state that was extractive and yet dependent on indigenous cooperation in many areas, especially in the case of the business class. In such conditions, Indian elites were critical in creating informal systems of peer-group education, enhancing aspiration through the use of historicist and religious themes and in creating a " benign sociology " of India as a prelude to development. Indigenous ideologies and practices were as significant in this slow enhancement of Indian capabilities as transplanted colonial ones. Contemporary development specialists would do well to consider the merits of indigenous forms of association and public debate, religious movements and entrepreneurial classes. Over much of Asia and Africa, the most successful enhancement of people ' s capabilities has come through the action of hybrid institutions of this type. |
| Keywords: | Cultural Policy,Economic Theory & Research,Corporate Law,,Anthropology |
| Date: | 2008–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4474&r=cwa |
| By: | Siddiqi, Hammad |
| Abstract: | Information flows are necessary for well-functioning financial markets. However, in many emerging markets, the legal and institutional preconditions for proper information flow are not met. How do such markets respond? We argue that they respond by developing innovative information transmission mechanisms. We identify one such mechanism associated with the evolution of equity markets in South Asia. The mechanism operates through a financing instrument unique to India and Pakistan, called badla in local parlance. We develop a signaling model in which a broker-financier signals his private information to investors by choosing various levels of financing to provide in the badla market for stocks. A fully separating equilibrium exists allowing full discrimination of various types of stocks. Hence, information transmission takes place through this channel. |
| Keywords: | Signaling; Information Transmission; Separating Equilibrium; Badla-Financing; Emerging Markets |
| JEL: | D82 D80 G20 |
| Date: | 2008–01–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:6714&r=cwa |
| By: | Minford, Patrick (Cardiff Business School); Pal, Soubarna |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to establish the ability of a Real Business Cycle (RBC) model to account for the behaviour of the real exchange rate, using Indian data (1966-1997). We calibrate the dynamic general equilibrium open economy model (Minford, Sofat 2004) based on optimising decisions of rational agents, using annual data for India. The first order conditions from the households' and firms' optimisation problem are used to derive the behavioural equations of the model. The interaction with the rest of the world comes in the form of uncovered real interest rate parity and current account both of which are explicitly micro-founded. The paper discusses the simulation results of 1 percent per annum productivity growth shock, which shows that the real exchange rate appreciates and then goes back to a new equilibrium (lower than the previous one), producing a business cycle. Thus the behaviour of the real exchange rate may be explicable within the RBC context. Finally we test our model and evaluate statistically whether our calibrated model is seriously consistent with the real exchange rate data, using bootstrapping procedure. We bootstrap our model to generate pseudo real exchange rate series and find that the ARIMA parameters estimated for the actual real exchange rate data lie within the 95% confidence limits constructed by bootstrapping. We find the same result for the nominal rigidity version of the RBC model. So we conclude that the behaviour of the Indian real exchange rate (US $ / Indian Rupees) can be explained by RBC. |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2008/1&r=cwa |
| By: | Bhattacharyya, Surajit |
| Abstract: | The paper models alternative investment-accelerator relationships within the neoclassical theory of Jorgenson followed by firm level panel data estimation and empirical test for other determinants of corporate investment e.g., internal liquidity, profitability, and firms’ financial strength. Athey and Laumas (1994) claimed that internal liquidity had replaced market demand in Indian firm level investment. Others indicate presence of finance constraints in Indian private sector investment activities; Kumar et al. (2001, 2002). Therefore, in the immediate aftermath of liberalization whether market demand had still not been important when availability of internal liquidity, firms’ profitability and creditworthiness are considered. We consider Indian manufacturing firms in the post-reform period of 1990s. There is significant support for the investment–accelerator relationship. Internal liquidity is relatively more important than profitability when it comes to firms’ investment decisions. There is also evidence that credit worthiness of firms to outside creditors is important for firm investment decision. |
| Keywords: | Business fixed investment; sales accelerator; retained earnings; profitability; financial strength. |
| JEL: | D21 G11 E22 L64 |
| Date: | 2008–01–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:6702&r=cwa |
| By: | Harabi, Najib |
| Abstract: | Knowledge has always been at the heart of economic growth and development. It is disseminated chiefly through the different stages of education, R&D, the mass media and the translation industry. In Arab countries there has been a widespread impression that there is a low level of translation activities, which in turn has led to a low output of the translation industry in those countries. This research project addresses this issue; its overall objectives are (1) to describe the economic performance of the Arabic book translation industry in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Syria; (2) to understand empirically the economic performance of that industry, the focus here being on qualitatively analyzing the major determinants (positive and negative factors) affecting the growth process of that industry; and (3) to provide policy makers and business leaders in the Arab region with theoretically sound and evidence-based advice on the issues analyzed in the project. To provide an empirical base for answering those questions, both published data and fresh new data have been used. For the latter purpose, a questionnaire-based survey was conducted in the year 2005 among 190 experts, covering firm representatives and experts in industry and government. The Porter (Diamond) model has been used as a theoretical background. The empirical results were incorporated in five national case studies. In addition, a synthesis of the results of the national reports gives a comparative account of the performance of the Arabic book translation industry in the five Arab countries |
| Keywords: | Book industry; Arabic book; Arab countries; Egypt; Morocco; Lebanon; Syria; Saudi-Arabia; translation; Arabic translation |
| JEL: | L89 Z11 |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:6707&r=cwa |
| By: | Desh Gupta; Milind Sathye |
| Abstract: | We analyse the factors that led to the turnaround of the Indian Railways from a low performing organisation to a high performing one. Literature on public sector turnaround provides the theoretical underpinnings. Enterprise turnaround is often ascribed to managerial leadership; we found that environmental factors (good luck) contributed in a substantial way to the success of Indian Railways. The implication of our study is that an organisation’s turnaround success needs to be put in a wider context. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:asarcc:2007-13&r=cwa |
| By: | Dutta, Arindam; Brahmbhatt, Milan |
| Abstract: | Infectious disease outbreaks can exact a high human and economic cost through illness and death. But, as with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in East Asia in 2003, or the plague outbreak in Surat, India, in 1994, they can also create severe economic disruptions even when there is, ultimately, relatively little illness or death. Such disruptions are commonly the result of uncoordinated and panicky efforts by individuals to avoid becoming infected, of preventive activity. This paper places these " SARS type " effects in the context of research on economic epidemiology, in which behavioral responses to disease risk have both economic and epidemiological consequences. The paper looks in particular at how people form subjective probability judgments about disease risk. Public opinion surveys during the SARS outbreak provide suggestive evidence that people did indeed at times hold excessively high perceptions of the risk of becoming infected, or, if infected, of dying from the disease. The paper discusses research in behavioral economics and the theory of information cascades that may shed light on the origin of such biases. The authors consider whether public information strategies can help reduce unwarranted panic. A preliminary question is why governments often seem to have strong incentives to conceal information about infectious disease outbreaks. The paper reviews recent game-theoretic analysis that clarifies government incentives. An important finding is that government incentives to conceal decline the more numerous are non-official sources of information about a possible disease outbreak. The findings suggest that honesty may indeed be the best public policy under modern conditions of easy mass global communications. |
| Keywords: | Health Monitoring & Evaluation,Disease Control & Prevention,Population Policies,Hazard Risk Management,Gender and Health |
| Date: | 2008–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4466&r=cwa |
| By: | Shafaeddin, Mehdi |
| Abstract: | Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine the potential impact of oil revenues on the economy of Sudan and the challenges facing the Government in policy making, particularly trade policy and allocation of oil revenues for long-run development and diversification of the production and export structure of the economy. The exploitation of oil resources has been accompanied by impressive liberalization of the economy by the Government of Sudan. Since then the country has been integrating into the world economy rapidly based on oil revenues. Yet, little has been achieved so far in integrating various sectors of the domestic economy despite relatively rapid GDP growth based on oil revenues. Rapid economic growth and diversification of the economy are among the main objectives of the Government. Therefore, the challenge facing the Government is to design and implement a long-term development strategy in order to build up a solid industrial and agricultural sector for sustainable development and expansion of non-oil exports. In such a strategy the design, and implementation, of trade and industrial policies and the way oil revenues are allocated, takes, inter alia, importance. Developing a conceptual framework of analysis, the author will argue that while export of petroleum provides financial resources for the acceleration of investment and growth, prospects for sustained growth and diversification will be still limited by some physical and institutional bottlenecks which can not be easily overcome by ample oil revenues. Trade in oil itself may have some detrimental socio-economic effects, including the attitude and policies of the Government, on the prospects for development and diversification of the economy in the long-run. Therefore, the Government policies, particularly trade policies, and the way oil revenues are allocated may not be necessarily conducive to long-run development and diversification of production and export structure. Proposing an alternative long-run trade and industrial policy for the country, the author will also outline the practical problems of its implementation under current international trade rules. ---------- *The author is a development economist with D.Phil from Oxford Univsity. He is currently an international consultant affiliated to the Institute of Economic Research, University of Neuchatel, Switzerland. He is the former Head, Macroeconomic and Development Policies Branch, UNCTAD and the author of a large number of articles, published in international journals, on trade and industrial policies, economic reform and other development policy issues. His latest book is: Trade Policy at the Crossroads; the recent experience of developing countries, Macmillan, 2005. This paper is developed on the basis of a part of a study undertaken for the World Bank under a DTSI project financed by the same Organization. The author benefited from interviews with Government authorities and comments from Mr. P. Shuler to whom goes his thanks. Comments are welcome and can be sent to author: M.Shafaeddin@Gmail.com. |
| Keywords: | Oil economies; trade policy; Sudan; economic development; diversification |
| JEL: | F4 F0 O5 O2 Q2 Q4 Q1 F3 F1 |
| Date: | 2007–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:6720&r=cwa |
| By: | Kaiser, Kai; Ihsan, Ahya; Fengler, Wolfgang |
| Abstract: | In recent years, natural and man-made disasters have confronted the international community with its most demanding reconstruction challenges since the aftermath of World War II. Managing the inflow of resources and spending those resources well have proven to be two of the main difficulties in such reconstruction projects, particularly after large-scale disasters. A central dilemma of the public financial management of reconstruction is the need for very high levels of accountability to demonstrate fiduciary credibility, while at the same time ensuring the rapid implementation of recovery programs. This paper identifies options and lessons for managing post-disaster reconstruction finance in three key areas: (i) the establishment of special institutions to manage the reconstruction process; (ii) the selection of public financial management systems with respect to the application of country systems, special fiduciary arrangements, or donor/NGO execution; and (iii) monitoring and evaluation systems. The authors synthesize the phasing of assistance and approaches in eight recent post-natural disaster reconstruction efforts (Aceh-Indonesia, Yogyakarta-Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan, Colombia, Grenada, and Honduras) to help guide the priorities and options for future instances of public financial management for disaster reconstruction. The paper also compares the challenges posed by post-conflict versus post-natural disaster public financial management. |
| Keywords: | Natural Disasters,Disaster Management,Post Conflict Reconstruction,Social Accountability,Post Conflict Reintegration |
| Date: | 2008–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4475&r=cwa |