|
on Central and Western Asia |
| By: | Shruthi Jayaram |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the decoupling hypothesis for India. This paper analyses business cycle synchronization between India and a set of industrial economies, particularly the United States, over the period 1992 to 2008. The evidence suggests that the Indian business cycle exhibits increasing co-movement with business cycles in industrial economies over this period. Indian business cycle synchronization is stronger with industrial countries as a whole as opposed to the co-movement found with the US. |
| Keywords: | Business cycles, synchronization, decoupling, trade, dynamic correlation |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2119&r=cwa |
| By: | Deb Kusum Das |
| Abstract: | This paper attempts to identify and examine labor intensive industries in the organized manufacturing sector in India in order to understand their employment generation potential. Using the data from the Annual Survey of Industries (Government of India, various issues), the labor intensity for 97 industries at the 4-digit disaggregate level was computed for the period 1990-91 to 2003-04. The study identifies 31 industries as ‘labor intensive industries’ within India’s organized manufacturing sector. The paper briefly highlights the plausible factors that could have had an impact on labor intensity as well as on the performance of the organized manufacturing sector over the study period. [WP No. 236]. |
| Keywords: | labor internsive industries, labour, employment, India, manufacturing, sector, elasticity, growth, productivity, capital, organized |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2129&r=cwa |
| By: | Vinod Mishra; Russell Smyth |
| Abstract: | This study examines the impact of the Indian cricket team’s performance in one day international cricket matches on returns on the Indian stock market. The main conclusion of the study is that there exists an asymmetric relationship between the performance of the Indian cricket team and stock returns on the Indian stock market. While a win by the Indian cricket team has no statistically significant upward impact on stock market returns, a loss generates a significant downward movement in the stock market. When Sachin Tendulker, India’s most popular cricketer, plays the size of the downward movement in returns is larger. |
| Keywords: | Cricket, India, Stock Market, Stochastic Dominance, Investor Psychology. |
| JEL: | D87 G14 L83 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2008-09&r=cwa |
| By: | James Ang |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of financial sector policies in determining private investment in the economies of India and Malaysia. The results suggest that the presence of significant directed credit programs favoring certain priority sectors in the economies appear to be harmful for private capital formation in both countries. Interest rate controls seem to have a positive impact on investment in the private sector, and the effect is found to be stronger in India. While high reserve and liquidity requirements exert a negative influence on private investment in India, the effect is found to be positive in Malaysia. |
| Keywords: | Private investment; financial sector policies; India; Malaysia. |
| JEL: | E22 O16 O53 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2008-07&r=cwa |
| By: | Mita Bhattacharya; Jong-Rong Chen; V. Pradeep Author-X-Name- V |
| Abstract: | Indian economic reform since early 1990s aims at improving productivity and competitiveness of major industries. The paper examines spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI), research and development (R&D) and exporting activities on productivity both for foreign and domestic manufacturing firms. The data is obtained from the PROWESS database provided by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Balanced panel of over 1,000 manufacturing firms in India between 1994 and 2006 are considered for our empirical analysis. Findings indicate that foreign presence has a significant spillover effect on the productivity of the Indian manufacturing firms compared to the alternative spillovers such as from R&D and export initiatives. |
| Keywords: | Productivity, Spillovers, Indian manufacturing, FDI. |
| JEL: | F21 O47 O53 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2008-30&r=cwa |
| By: | Prabir C. Bhattacharya |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this note is to highlight certain facts about the sex ratio (the number of females per thousand males) of the population in some Indian states, especially those in the northeast of the country. The states in the northeast are ethnically, linguistically and culturally very distinct from the other states of India. We note that while female children survive better in the northeastern states than elsewhere in India, in older ages women seem to fare worse than men in these states. The sex ratio of the population in the age group birth to 6 years in the northeastern states is among the highest in the country, but that of the population in the age group 60 years and above is among the lowest. Some explanations are offered for the observed behaviour of the sex ratios in these states. |
| Keywords: | sex ratio, northeast India, elderly women, survival disadvantage |
| JEL: | J11 J13 J14 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hwe:certdp:0901&r=cwa |
| By: | James Ang |
| Abstract: | Although theory emphasizes the role of financial market frictions in explaining income inequality, there is little empirical research exploring how financial development and financial sector reforms influence the evolution of income inequality. This paper examines how finance impacts on income inequality in India using annual time series data for over half a century. The results indicate that while financial development helps reduce income inequality, financial liberalization seems to have exacerbated income inequality in India. Our results are robust to the use of different measures for financial development and financial liberalization. |
| Keywords: | Financial development; financial liberalization, income inequality; India. |
| JEL: | G28 O16 O53 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2008-08&r=cwa |
| By: | Jakob Madsen; Shishir Saxena; James Ang |
| Abstract: | Using over half a century of R&D data for India, this paper examines the extent to which India’s recent growth experience can be explained by R&D, international R&D spillovers, catch-up to the technology frontier and financial liberalization. Furthermore, the paper also tests whether any of the competing second-generation endogenous growth theories can explain India’s growth experience. The findings provide support for Schumpeterian growth theory and indicate that the recent high growth rates in India are likely to continue well into the future. |
| Keywords: | Schumpeterian growth; semi-endogenous growth; R&D, |
| JEL: | O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2008-17&r=cwa |
| By: | James Ang; Kunal Sen |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we provide a comparative account of the evolution of private saving in India and Malaysia, and analyze how policy changes in the financial sectors and pension systems help explain differences in their saving performance. Using the ARDL bounds estimation procedure, we find a fairly robust long-run relationship between private saving and its determinants in both countries. Consistent with the predictions made in the life cycle model, our results indicate that higher income growth stimulates private saving and an increase in age dependency retards private saving. The results provide some support for the hypothesis that financial liberalization results in lower private saving in both countries. The evidence also indicates that expected pension benefits tend to stimulate private saving in India, but that the reverse is found in Malaysia. |
| Keywords: | private savings; pension saving; financial liberalization; India; Malaysia. |
| JEL: | C22 O16 O53 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2008-13&r=cwa |
| By: | Angus Deaton (Research Program in Development Studies Center for Health and Wellbeing Princeton University); Jean Drèze (Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi, India) |
| Abstract: | The Indian economy has recently grown at historically unprecedented rates and is now one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Real GDP per head grew at 3.95 percent a year from 1980 to 2005, and at 5.4 percent a year from 2000 to 2005. Measured at international prices, real per capita income in India, which was two-thirds of Kenya’s in 1950, and about the same as Nigeria’s, is now two and a half times as large as per capita income in both countries. Real per capita consumption has also grown rapidly, at 2.2 percent a year in the 1980s, at 2.5 percent a year in the 1990s, and at 3.9 percent a year from 2000 to 2005. Although the household survey data show much slower rates of per capita consumption growth than do these national accounts estimates, even these slower growth rates are associated with a substantial decrease in poverty since the early 1980s, Deaton and Drèze (2002), Himanshu (2007). Yet, per capita calorie intake is declining, as is the intake of many other nutrients; indeed fats are the only major nutrient group whose per capita consumption is unambiguously increasing. Today, more than three quarters of the population live in households whose per capita calorie consumption is less than 2,100 in urban areas and 2,400 in rural areas – numbers that are often cited as “minimum requirements” in India. A related concern is that anthropometric indicators of nutrition in India, for both adults and children, are among the worst in the world. Furthermore, the improvement of these measures of nutrition appears to be slow relative to what might be expected in the light of international experience and of India’s recent high rates of economic growth. Indeed, according to the National Family Health Survey, the proportion of underweight children remained virtually unchanged between 1998-99 and 2005-06 (from 47 to 46 percent for the age group of 0-3 years). 2 Undernutrition levels in India remain higher even than for most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, even though those countries are currently much poorer than India, have grown much more slowly, and have much higher levels of infant and child mortality. In this paper, we do not attempt to provide a complete and fully documented story of poverty, nutrition and growth in India. In fact, we doubt that such an account is currently possible. Instead, our aim is to present the most important facts, to point to a number of unresolved puzzles, and to present an outline of a coherent story that is consistent with the facts. As far as the decline in per capita calorie consumption is concerned, our leading hypothesis, on which much work remains to be done, is that while real incomes and real wages have increased (leading to some nutritional improvement), there has been an offsetting reduction in calorie requirements, due to declining levels of physical activity and possibly also to various improvements in the health environment. The net effect has been a slow reduction in per capita calorie consumption. Whatever the explanation, there is historical evidence of related episodes in other countries, for example in Britain from 1775 to 1850, where in spite of rising real wages, there was no apparent increase in the real consumption of food, Clark et al (1995). Per capita calorie consumption also appears to have declined in contemporary China in the 1980s and 1990s (a period of rapid improvement in nutrition indicators such as height and weight), see Du, Lu, Zhai and Popkin (2002). One of our main points is that, just as there is no tight link between incomes and calorie consumption, there is no tight link between the numbers of calories consumed and nutritional or health status. Although the number of calories is important, so are other factors, such as a balanced diet containing a reasonable proportion of fruits, vegetables, and fats, not just calories from cereals, as are factors that affect the need for and retention of calories, such as activity 3 levels, clean water, sanitation, good hygiene practices, and vaccinations. Because of changes in these other factors, the fact that people are increasingly choosing away from a diet that is heavy in cereals does not imply that nutritional status will automatically get worse. Nor should a reduction in calories associated with lower activity levels be taken to mean that Indians are currently adequately nourished; nothing could be further from the truth. We start by documenting the decline in per capita calorie consumption (Section 2.1), as well as the state of malnutrition (Section 2.2). We then look at possible reasons for the reduction in calories (Section 3.1), and try to tease out how it fits into the general picture of economic growth and malnutrition in India (Section 3.2). Section 4 concludes. We emphasize at the outset that our analysis covers the period up to 2006, so that we do not discuss what has happened to calorie consumption or to nutritional status in the subsequent two years, during which there has been a marked increase in the price of food, both in India and around the world. |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cde:cdewps:170&r=cwa |
| By: | K Sundaram (Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi, India) |
| Abstract: | This paper offers a review of the concepts and definitions used in the NSS Employment-Unemployment Surveys (EUS, for short) which have remained virtually unchanged since they were introduced in the NSS 27th Round (1972-73) based on the analysis and recommendations in the Report of the Expert Group on Unemployment Estimate – better known as the Dantwala Committee Report (GOI, 1970). It also examines critically the employment-unemployment estimates derived/derivable from EUS and the use of such estimates for planning and policy. |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cde:cdewps:174&r=cwa |
| By: | Chakrabarti B.B. |
| Abstract: | The paper seeks to analyse and discuss the impact of financial reform and related institutional change on the process of financial intermediation. In effect reforms stood the earlier quantity driven model on its head. The attempt was to de-segment markets and remove asset and liability restriction of the balance sheets of financial intermediaries. Regulatory barriers to entry would be removed and markets would determine prices. Specialisation, if any, would be market driven rather than by policy design and financial intermediaries were free to use economies of scale and scope to achieve efficiency gains and improve market reach. [No. 593/ May 2006]. |
| Keywords: | stock, small scale industry, India, reform, financial markets, institutional structure, financial intermediation, credit, securitisation, risk aversion, mortgage backed securities (MBS), Geramany, Italy, Japan, |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2124&r=cwa |
| By: | Roy Bahl (Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University); Sally Wallace (Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University); Musharraf Cyan (International Studies Program. Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study is to review the status of revenue mobilization by sub-national Governments in Pakistan, and to identify reform options that might lead to a higher level of revenues and a better functioning fiscal decentralization. This analysis is based on case studies of Punjab and NWFP provinces, and on data gathered in the course of field work in the two provinces. |
| Keywords: | Pakistan, Provincial Government, Pakistan Taxation, fiscal decentralization, revenue mobolization |
| Date: | 2008–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper0807&r=cwa |
| By: | Geerten M. M. Michielse |
| Abstract: | The Government of Pakistan is considering an extensive tax and administrative reform by 2009 and asked the World Bank to provide a discussion paper on several technical issues. This report is dealing with the international aspects of the tax system: (a) the double tax agreements, and (b) the trade agreements. |
| Keywords: | Pakistan, Pakistan Taxation, tax agreements, trade agreements |
| Date: | 2008–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper0809&r=cwa |
| By: | Pami Dua (Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi, India); Upasna Gaur (Global Research Group, ICICI Bank Mumbai) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the determination of inflation in the framework of an open economy forward-looking as well as conventional backward-looking Phillips curve for eight Asian countries - Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, China Mainland and India. Using quarterly data from the 1990s to 2005 and applying the instrumental variables estimation technique, we find that the output gap is significant in explaining the inflation rate in almost all the countries. Furthermore, at least one measure of international competitiveness has a statistically significant influence on inflation in all the countries. The differences in the developed and developing world are highlighted by the significance of agriculture related supply shocks in determining inflation in the case of developing countries. For all countries, the forward-looking Phillips curve provides a better fit compared to the backward looking variant. |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cde:cdewps:178&r=cwa |
| By: | Sally Wallace (Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University); Harini Kannan |
| Abstract: | The fundamental proposal for comprehensive individual income tax reform in Pakistan is to provide an integrated income tax structure that pertains to income of all individuals (including non-incorporated businesses) and which otherwise dramatically simplifies the taxation of individual income in Pakistan. An integrated individual income tax would treat individuals (salaried employees, self-employed businesses, and other non-corporate entities) in a similar way by applying a given tax rate structure to taxable income. |
| Keywords: | Pakistan, Pakistan taxation, individual income tax, income tax |
| Date: | 2008–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper0812&r=cwa |
| By: | Kalyoncu, Kahraman |
| Abstract: | Bu çalışmada gıda harcamalarının toplam gelir içindeki paylarına bakarak, bireyin ya da hane halkının reel gelirinin ya da satın alma gücünün artıp artmadığı sorusuna cevap aradık. Gıda harcamalarının bütçe içindeki payının azalmasını reel gelirin artmasının bir göstergesi olarak ele aldık. Çalışmamızda Türkiye’nin 17 bölgesel hale getirilmiş illerinde 1994 ve 2003 yıllarında yapılan hane halkı bütçe anketi verilerini kullandık. Analiz sonucunda ele alınan dönem itibariyle gıda harcamalarının gelir içindeki payının azaldığı bulunmuştur. Sonuç olarak ele alınan dönemler itibariyle hane halklarının reel gelirinin ya da satın alma güçlerinin arttığı bulunmuştur. ABSTRACT In this study, we investigate whether the individuals or household real income level or purchasing power parity increases in terms of food expenditure ratio in income. If the portion of the food expenditure in budget declines then we take it as an increase income level. 17 Turkish pregionalized provincial level household data is used for 1994 and 2003. For the period we experience that food expenditure ratio in income declines. Therefore, household reel income level or purchasing power has increased. |
| Keywords: | Anahtar Kelimeler: Satın Alma Gücü; Gıda Harcamalarının Gelir İçindeki Payı; Engel Kanunu; Düşük Mal; Purchasing Power; Food Expenditure Ratio İn İncome; Engel Law; Inferior Good. |
| JEL: | O11 B21 O47 I12 B22 O40 E21 O12 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16152&r=cwa |
| By: | Hemanshu Kumar (IES Abroad, Delhi); Rohini Somanathan (Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi, India) |
| Abstract: | The Indian states have been the standard unit of analysis for research on India that uses official data sources. For many empirical questions, states are a natural starting point because state governments set political agendas and budgets and administer a wide range of services. In addition, the boundaries of many states have been unchanged for over half a century and those of all major states were largely unchanged between 1971 and 2000. This stability has resulted in the relatively easy construction and use of panel data sets at the state level and these data have been used to ask a variety of questions relating to the e ectiveness of public policy. The use of more disaggregated district data allows the study of outcomes across regions with similar historical contexts and political regimes. States have an average of 20 districts, so district level panels can also be much larger. Most district-level studies however have relied on cross-sectional analysis because district comparisons over time are complicated by multiple boundary changes. Between 1971 and 2001, the number of districts increased from 356 to 593, a rise of about 67%. The purpose of this paper is to provide information on boundary changes across districts that will facilitate the construction of district-level panel data sets. We use population data from the state and central volumes of the Census of India to document changes in district boundaries between 1971 and 2001. For each decade during the 1971-2001 pe- riod, we classify districts into three categories: those with unchanged boundaries, those created by partitioning existing districts and nally, districts whose current boundaries were located in multiple districts at the time of the previous census. We nd that 136 of the 356 Indian dis- tricts in 1971 (38%) were una ected by boundary changes over the subsequent three decades, 79 districts (22%) were cleanly partitioned into multiple districts over the same period, and the 1 remaining 141 districts experienced more complex changes. Unchanged districts obviously pose no problem for the construction of panel data and the number of these districts can be quite large for short panels. For partitioned districts we provide population weights that permit the construction of panels using boundaries of either later or earlier census years as the base. For districts that are neither unchanged nor partitioned it is in general only possible to generate accurate population weights across adjacent census years. We provide these weights separately for the three periods: 1971-1981, 1981-1991, and 1991-2001. In addition, we amalgamate neigh- bouring districts into composite regions with unchanged boundaries between each census year and 2001. These composite regions, along with the unchanged and partitioned districts, give us the complete set of geographical units with unchanged boundaries between any census year and 2001. The following section provides details on data sources and our methods and compares these to those used by other studies relying on multi-year district data. Section 3 summarises some basic patterns. Section 4 concludes with some caveats on using our data and points to the type of work needed to construct district-level series over long time periods. |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cde:cdewps:176&r=cwa |
| By: | Umir Wahid; Sally Wallace (Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | Who pays Pakistan’s taxes? Do they fall inordinately on low-income families, or on labor working in the formal sector, or is the tax burden borne disproportionately by the higher income classes, who also own most of the capital in the country? The fairness of the tax system is not only affected by who pays taxes, but by who does not. The latter group might include those working in the hard-to-tax informal sector, agriculture, those who benefit from legal exemptions, and those who evade taxes. |
| Keywords: | Pakistan, Pakistan taxation, hard-to-tax informal sector |
| Date: | 2008–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper0813&r=cwa |
| By: | Wayne Thirsk (Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | This paper undertakes a critical evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of all of Pakistan’s major sources of tax revenue: the individual income tax, the corporate income tax, the sales tax, excise taxes and trade taxes on imports. For each major tax it describes the nature of the current tax base and the rate or rate structure that is applied to that base. After that exercise the paper identifies certain features of each tax that raise significant concerns for tax policy and constitute the beginning of an agenda for future tax reform. In each case the tax policy issues that have been flagged are discussed within a policy framework that appeals to the broadly accepted norms of “good” taxation and international experience in grappling with these issues. The concluding section of this paper sets forth for consideration an array of tax reform proposals that attempt to address the most important flaws and problems that have been detected in Pakistan’s tax system. |
| Keywords: | Pakistan, Pakistan Taxation, fiscal decentralization, revenue mobolization, sources of tax revenue |
| Date: | 2008–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper0808&r=cwa |
| By: | Khan, Muhammad; Husnain, Muhammad Iftikhar Ul; Akram, Naeem; Padda, Ihtsham Ul Haq |
| Abstract: | A pesticide safety knowledge test was developed to assess farmer’s knowledge related to pesticide safety. Yes-No (true-false) type 25 item, test, was constructed and used in a sample of 162 pesticide applicator in two districts of southern Punjab Pakistan. The overall mean score was 17.2(72%). More educated and adult respondents performed better than younger and illiterate. Similarly large land holder scored higher than small landholders, indicating their more access to information and extension. Overall ten Items received less than 50% correct response. The result shows that farmers have reasonably good knowledge but it still has to see, to what extent that knowledge is being used practically. It could possibly be the future research topic. |
| Keywords: | Health cost; Environmental cost; Pesticide knowledge; pesticide safety |
| JEL: | Q50 I12 Q57 |
| Date: | 2009–07–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16220&r=cwa |
| By: | James Alm (Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University); Mir Ahmad Khan |
| Abstract: | The Pakistan system of taxing enterprises has undergone some major changes in recent years. Nevertheless, the corporate tax system remains plagued by a number of problems. The existence of numerous exemption programs has significantly reduced tax revenues, and has greatly distorted the allocation of investment across sectors and asset types. There also seems to exist significant amounts of tax evasion, evasion that also distorts resource allocation, reduces tax revenues, and compromises the distributional objectives of the system. In part as a result of tax avoidance and tax evasion, the tax base has shrunk over time, further reducing revenues and leaving the more visible taxpayers still out of the tax net. The extensive use of tax incentives is seldom tracked, quantified, and evaluated, and the intended effects on economic growth are uncertain. The incentives are only one feature of the tax system that contributes to an overly complicated system, complications that illustrate the limitations of the tax administration. The tax system was designed for times and circumstances that are long past, and the system has evolved over time in a piecemeal, ad hoc manner with little apparent thought given to the ways in which the pieces of the system need to fit together. |
| Keywords: | Pakistan, Pakistan Taxation, Pakistan system of taxing enterprises, tax avoidance, tax evasion |
| Date: | 2008–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper0810&r=cwa |
| By: | Tuck Cheong Tang; Evan Lau |
| Abstract: | This study aims to examine the sustainability of balancing item (‘net errors and omissions’) of balance of payment accounts for OIC (Organisation of the Islamic Conference) member countries. The series specific panel unit root test (SURADF unit root tests) suggest that 9 out of 23 sampled OIC member countries have their balancing item sustainable - Albania, Coted’Ivoire, Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mozambique, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Uganda. |
| Keywords: | Balancing Item (Net Errors and Omissions); Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC); Sustainability |
| JEL: | C22 F32 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2008-31&r=cwa |
| By: | Robina Ather Ahmed; Mark Rider (Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | This report provides estimates of Pakistan’s tax gap by type of tax and describes the methodologies and data used to produce these estimates. A country’s tax gap is the amount of tax that goes uncollected due to non-compliance with the tax law. For estimation purposes, the operational definition of the tax gap is the difference between potential and actual federal tax revenue, where potential revenue is the amount of tax that the government would collect if everyone fully complied with the tax law. It is a simple matter to get actual tax collections by type of tax, so the trick to estimating a country’s tax gap is to obtain a reasonably accurate measure of potential tax revenue. Our basic strategy is to use micro-simulation models to estimate the potential revenues from Pakistan’s federal taxes of which there are only a hand full. Such modeling requires micro-economic data with information about the relevant tax bases and a tax calculator to simulate tax liabilities by type of tax. The advantage of this approach is the detailed information that it provides on the rate of compliance by type of tax which should be helpful in targeting scarce tax enforcement resources and in evaluating tax policy reforms. |
| Keywords: | Pakistan, Pakistan Taxation, tax gap, non-compliance |
| Date: | 2008–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper0811&r=cwa |
| By: | Akram, Naeem; Pada, Itsham ul Haq |
| Abstract: | Human Capital plays pivotal role for economic growth process. The aim of this paper is to present a brief overview of the studies conducted on the relationship between education and economic growth. Most of the studies are cross-sectional, including developing and developed countries and single country studies are very few in numbers. A general consensus emerges from the review of literature is that there exists a positive relationship between education and economic growth. However in cross section of countries it is assumed that data for each country is same but this assumption become void when studies uses data from opposing conditions of countries. So there is a need for a study on Pakistan that will account fall the impacts of traditional and nontraditional educational systems on economic growth. |
| Keywords: | Education; Growth; Human capital |
| JEL: | H5 J24 O4 |
| Date: | 2009–07–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16200&r=cwa |
| By: | Mahmoud, Chowdhury Shameem; Khalily, M. A. Baqui; Wadood, Syed Naimul |
| Abstract: | We discuss evidence that the microcredit industry in Bangladesh has seen emergence of large variations in the size of the microfinance institutions operating in the market-- on the one hand, there are large national-level MFIs, while on the other hand, small localized MFIs operating only within the confines of a small area. Data from a recent survey of Pathrail union in Tangail district, a seasoned place for microcredit, reveals that within the local market competition is becoming more and more intense over time between established national-level MFIs and newly emerging local-level MFIs for market shares in terms of loan amount as well as borrowed members. Data reveals that there is market segmentation where some borrowers and MFIs opt for a package of low interest rates tied with low amount of loan disbursed and some other borrowers and MFIs settle for a package of high interest rates tied with high amount of loan disbursed. A Tobit regression estimation of member market shares in village micro credit market shows that size of the MFI, years of operation in the village, average loan size, deposit interest rates, loan amount disbursed for unique loan purposes (i.e., housing loan) are key determinants in determining MFI shares of a village microcredit market. |
| Keywords: | Microcredit; Market Share; Product and Provider Characteristics of Microcredit |
| JEL: | L11 C34 D02 D4 L1 G21 |
| Date: | 2009–07–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16172&r=cwa |