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on Central and Western Asia |
| By: | SriSubramaniam, Guruswamy; Sairavi, Subramaniam |
| Abstract: | Food production has been one of the major concerns for Indian political climate. Major agricultural changes and policies were initiated to bring more agricultural productivity in India. Union Government also strives to bring more growth in Agricultural sector through five year plan initiations. Yet, result seems to be slower agricultural growth and lack of proper vision & implementation. Major concerns like water availability, improper distribution & water management, pollution, increasing population, rural migration to urban, economic diversion towards other sectors, and increasing rural poverty are in increasing trend. Authors bring statistical evidence for above mentioned concerns and decision makers to consider these issues critically for any policy initiations. Authors stress that unless agricultural productivity increases, average Indian poverty statistics will not reduce. By 2030, India will reach first in world population, might also face severe food crisis. It’s now time for Indian government to rethink on their economic policies to bring life for dieing agricultural sector. |
| Keywords: | Indian agriculture; Food production; Agricultural growth; future of Indian agriculture; Sustainable Agricultural development |
| JEL: | O1 Q1 Q17 O13 N5 |
| Date: | 2009–08–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16866&r=cwa |
| By: | Bhattacharya, Manasi (affiliation not available); Bedi, Arjun S. (Institute of Social Studies); Chhachhi, Amrita (Institute of Social Studies) |
| Abstract: | Dominant development policy approaches recommend women's employment on the grounds that it facilitates their empowerment, which in turn is believed to be instrumental in enhancing women's well-being. However, empirical work on the relationship between women's employment status and their well-being as measured by freedom from marital violence yields an ambiguous picture. Motivated by this ambiguity, this paper draws on testimonies of men and women and data gathered from rural Uttar Pradesh, to examine the effect of women's employment and asset status as measured by their participation in paid work and their ownership of property, respectively, on spousal violence. Unlike the existing literature, we treat women's work status and violence as simultaneously determined and find that women's engagement in paid work and ownership of property, are associated with sharp reductions in marital violence. |
| Keywords: | domestic violence, employment status, property ownership, India |
| JEL: | J12 J15 J16 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4361&r=cwa |
| By: | Jain, Tarun |
| Abstract: | Boys and girls in India experience large dierences in survival and health outcomes. For example, the 2001 Census reports that the sex ratio for children under six years of age is 927 girls per thousand boys, an outcome that has been attributed to differences in parents’ behavior towards their sons and daughters. Most studies rely primarily on cultural factors or biases in economic returns to explain these differences. In this paper, I propose an explanation where bequest motives drive fertility behavior that generates sex-based differences in outcomes even when parents do not explicitly prefer boys over girls. In India’s patrilocal rural society, women do not inherit property and heads of joint families aim to retain assets within the family lineage for future generations. I hypothesize that this leads heads to bequeath more land to claimants with more sons, in turn generating a race for sons among adult brothers seeking to maximize their inheritance of agricultural land. I confirm this theoretical prediction using panel data from rural households in India. This strategic fertility behavior implies that girls have systematically more siblings compared to boys, and hence receive smaller shares of household resources, offering an explanation for sex-based dierences in outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Strategic bequests. Joint family. Fertility choice. Gender discrimination. Sex ratio. |
| JEL: | J13 H31 O15 J12 J16 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16835&r=cwa |
| By: | Hussain, Karrar |
| Abstract: | This study attempts to analyze the causal relationship between inflation and productivity of labor and capital, in Pakistan’s economy by covering the period from 1960-M1 to 2007-M12. For this purpose Vector Autoregression (VAR) approach is used, which is based on error correction model (ECM). Using this approach we have showed the causal ordering between inflation and exchange rate management policy controlling for, monetary variables like broad money (M-2) and discount rate, which are endogenous in case of Pakistan. We considered the relationship of inflation with two measures of productivity (average and marginal productivity) of labor and capital controlling for capital labor ratio. The objective of this paper is to identify the relative importance of each of these inflation channels by generating Impulse Response Functions (IRFs) to confirm the response of a shock on a variable upon itself and other variables over the four years of time span. Our study concludes that there is a unidirectional causality from inflation to labor productivity through capital labor ratio. And also, there is bidirectional causality between inflation and capital productivity through capital labor ratio. And lastly each channel takes almost fifteen months (on average) for input productivities to affect or affected by inflation. |
| Keywords: | Productivity, Inflation, Vector Autoregression |
| JEL: | C32 B22 C01 |
| Date: | 2009–08–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16486&r=cwa |
| By: | Tokel, O. Emre; Yucel, M. Eray |
| Abstract: | This study examines the online access statistics of the Central Bank of Turkey’s Electronic Data Delivery System within an event study framework. The comparisons of pre-event and post-event statistics suggest that announcements of both the policy interest rates and the consumer price data considerably affect society’s data access behavior. The timing and amplitude of these effects are further studied with respect to inflation expectations and surprise content of events; yet no solid pattern was revealed. |
| Keywords: | Data access; Macroeconomic data; Market efficiency; Event study |
| JEL: | G14 C50 G10 |
| Date: | 2009–08–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16833&r=cwa |
| By: | Aaditya Mattoo (amattoo@worldbank.org); Arvind Subramanian (Peterson Institute for International Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents an unusual and possibly significant phenomenon: the export of skills embodied in goods, services, or capital from poorer to richer countries. We first present a set of stylized facts. Using a measure that combines the sophistication of a country’s exports with the average income level of destination countries, we show that the performance of a number of developing countries, notably China, Mexico, and South Africa, matches that of much more advanced countries, such as Japan, Spain, and the United States. Creating a new combined dataset on foreign direct investment (FDI) (covering greenfield investments as well as mergers and acquisitions) we show that flows of FDI to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries from developing countries like Brazil, India, Malaysia, and South Africa as a share of their GDP are as large as flows from countries like Japan, Korea, and the United States. Then, taking the work of Hausmann et al. (2007) as a point of departure, we suggest that it is not just the composition of exports but their destination that matters. In both cross-sectional and panel regressions, with a range of controls, we find that a measure of uphill flows of sophisticated goods is significantly associated with better growth performance. These results suggest the need for a deeper analysis of whether development benefits might derive not from deifying comparative advantage but from defying it. |
| Keywords: | Uphill flows, foreign direct investment, finance, sophisticated goods, exports, services, growth, comparative advantage, mergers and acquisitions, greenfield investment |
| JEL: | F1 F2 F4 O4 |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iie:wpaper:wp09-7&r=cwa |
| By: | Navaneetham K |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the levels, patterns, and determinants of morbidity in Kerala. This study is based on a community survey conducted in 2004, in three districts of the state namely Thiruvananthapuram, Malappuram and Kannur. The survey covers 3320 households having 17071 individuals in all age groups. Reported morbidity was captured for a period of fifteen days prior to the data of survey. Life course analysis was performed to understand the risk of morbidity at various stages, like infancy, early childhood, late childhood, adolescence, reproductive ages and old age, in relation to the impact of socio-economic, demographic and regional factors. [WP No. 411]. |
| Keywords: | morbidity, kerala, reproductive ages, adolescence, reporductive, community survey, state,Thiruvananthapuram, Malappuram, households, age groups, age, survey, data, old age, socio-economic, demographic, regional factors, life, life course analysis, childhood, Kannur |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2176&r=cwa |
| By: | Abhay Pethe |
| Abstract: | The present study examines issues related to fiscal federalism at the third tier in general and grants to local bodies in particular. The study presents a normative framework to estimate the requirements of operation and maintenance (O&M) expenditure at the local body level based on three important public services that is, water, education and roads. [DRG Study Series No. 29]. |
| Keywords: | fiscal federalism, local bodies, normative frame work, expenditure, local body, local body, water, education, roads, consolidated fund, finance commission, finance, panchayat raj, |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2175&r=cwa |
| By: | Brenda Mak (CEB - Center for Electronic Business - San Francisco State University); Robert Nickerson (CEB - Center for Electronic Business - San Francisco State University); Henri Isaac (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - CNRS : UMR7088 - Université Paris Dauphine - Paris IX) |
| Abstract: | Since the first commercial launch of cellular telecoms by NET in Tokyo Japan in 1979 and the launch of the NMT system in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in 1981, the mobile phone has undergone continual incremental innovation for changing market needs. This study investigates the factors affecting the attitudes towards the social acceptance of mobile phones in public places and how this attitude affects its usage. Theories on innovation and technology acceptance were reviewed, and studies relating demographic factors to technology acceptance were examined. A model was proposed relating the usage frequency and attitudes towards acceptance of mobile phone in public places to demographic factors, such as country, age, education, gender, and work status. A survey was conducted among mobile phone users, and the sample consisted of 1079 respondents in the United States, France, Italy, Turkey, and Finland. A structural equation model was developed to analyze the survey data. Results of the analysis indicate that the attitudes about mobile phone use in public places depend on country, and age factors. This attitude in turn significantly affects the usage frequency of mobile phones. In addition, usage frequency also is affected by gender and work status. Implications of the findings for both academicians and practitioners are discussed |
| Keywords: | Attitudes about Mobile Phone Use, Simultaneous Relationships, Demographic Factors, Mobile Phone Voice Messaging, Mobile Phone Text Messaging |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00375094_v1&r=cwa |
| By: | Hamanaka, Shingo |
| Abstract: | Israel’s policies regarding Lebanon have been dependent on public opinion, which is very volatile. The citizens of Israel did not favor the occupation of the security zone in South Lebanon because of the Four Mothers movement, and it influenced the government to withdraw military forces unilaterally in May 2000. When Hizbollah attacked the Israel Defense Force (IDF) patrol and abducted two soldiers on the northern border, the Israeli citizens supported the government’s decision of waging a war in retaliation. This study aims to shed light on the causal mechanism of the influence of public opinion on the defense policy in the rational framework of deterrence strategy. I chose the evolutionary game theory approach as my research method. My study yielded the following result: the deterrence is not stable when the aggression level of the defenders is less than the level of the critical condition. The Israeli government made a decision to conduct unilateral withdrawal under the pressure of passive defenders among the people. However, the IDF could begin the operation in Lebanon because of a substantial number of supporters who hoped to restore the deterrence. This study concludes that the Israelis exhibited strong intension and an aggressive attitude toward the deterrence. |
| Keywords: | Deterrence; Evolutionary Game Theory; Second Lebanon War; Israel; Hizbollah |
| JEL: | N45 F5 F51 C7 N4 C72 |
| Date: | 2009–08–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16800&r=cwa |
| By: | Goel, Deepti (Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR)) |
| Abstract: | I examine whether after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 Muslim immigrants and immigrants who fit the Muslim Arab stereotype in Australia perceive a greater increase in religious and racial intolerance and discrimination compared to other immigrant groups. I also examine whether there is a differential change in their labor market outcomes. I find that after 9/11 there is a greater increase in the likelihood of Muslim men and of those who look like Muslims to report a lot of religious and racial intolerance and discrimination relative to other immigrants. Further, I do not find evidence that after 9/11 Muslims or their stereotypes show a differential change in the likelihood of looking for a new main job or of being employed. There is also no evidence of a differential change in hours worked or in wage incomes. This suggests that the Australian labor market did not react to attitudinal changes in society, at least in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. |
| Keywords: | discrimination, immigrants, September 2001, 9/11 |
| JEL: | J61 J71 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4356&r=cwa |
| By: | Tsuneishi, Takao |
| Abstract: | The North-South Economic Corridor (NSEC), the road between Bangkok and Kunming, China, including the Laos route (R3B) and the Myanmar route (R3B), has been developed since 1998 following the GMS program. The region covering Yunnan Province in China, Shan State in Myanmar, Northern Laos and Northern Thailand has historical and ethnic closeness, and is a comparatively poor mountainous, boundary area. In the wake of the development of the NSEC, however, the region has started to show signs of change. Consequently, a review is to be carried out concerning the movement of people and cars, border trade and the situation concerning the progress of border economic zones at the five nodal border points in the four countries, and over three routes: R3A, R3B, and the Mekong River route. |
| Keywords: | GMS, Economic corridor, Border trade, Border economic zone, Quadrangle economic zone, Golden triangle, R3A, R3B, Mekong River, CBTA, Asia, China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, International trade, Regional economic cooperation |
| JEL: | F15 O53 R11 |
| Date: | 2009–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper205&r=cwa |
| By: | Islam, Asadul; Choe, Chongwoo |
| Abstract: | Microcredit has been shown to be effective in reducing poverty in many developing countries. However, less is known about its effect on human capital formation. In this paper, we develop a model examining the relation between microcredit and child labour. We then empirically examine the impact of access to microcredit on children’s education and child labour using a new and large data set from rural Bangladesh. We address the selection bias using the instrumental variable method where the instrument relies on an exogenous variation in treatment intensity among households in different villages. The results show that household participation in a microcredit program may increase child labour and reduce school enrolment. The adverse effects are more pronounced for girls than boys. Younger children are more adversely affected than their older siblings and the children of poorer and less educated households are affected most adversely. Our findings remain robust to different specifications and methods, and when corrected for various sources of selection bias. |
| Keywords: | Microcredit; child labour; school enrolment; instrumental variable; treatment effect |
| JEL: | A20 C21 O12 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16842&r=cwa |
| By: | Breuer, Janice Boucher; McDermott, John |
| Abstract: | Intrinsically trustworthy agents never cheat. A society's willingness to trust and the quality of its institutions have their origins in the intrinsic trustworthiness of its citizens. Trustworthiness is the basis for maximizing output in economic exchange and in explaining differences in standards of living around the world. We measure intrinsic trustworthiness with a question from the World Values Survey and estimate its effect using a sample of 60 countries. We find that trustworthiness is important for output per capita and that the effect of trust is likely to come from trustworthiness. |
| Keywords: | trustworthiness; trust; institutions; output per capita |
| JEL: | O43 Z13 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16777&r=cwa |
| By: | Hoff, Karla (World Bank); Kshetramade, Mayuresh (affiliation not available); Fehr, Ernst (University of Zurich) |
| Abstract: | Well-functioning groups enforce social norms that restrain opportunism, but the social structure of a society may encourage or inhibit norm enforcement. Here we study how the exogenous assignment to different positions in an extreme social hierarchy – the caste system – affects individuals' willingness to punish violations of a cooperation norm. Although we control for individual wealth, education, and political participation, low caste individuals exhibit a much lower willingness to punish norm violations that hurt members of their own caste, suggesting a cultural difference across caste status in the concern for members of one's own community. The lower willingness to punish may inhibit the low caste's ability to sustain collective action and so may contribute to its economic vulnerability. |
| Keywords: | social norms, informal sanctions, third party punishment, endogenous social preferences, social exclusion, collective action, caste |
| JEL: | D02 D64 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4343&r=cwa |
| By: | Angus S. Deaton |
| Abstract: | Durkheim’s famous study of suicide is a precursor of a large contemporary literature that investigates the links between religion and health. The topic is particularly germane for the health of women and of the elderly, who are much more likely to be religious. In this paper, I use data from the Gallup World Poll to study the within and between country relationships between religiosity, age, and gender, as well as the effects of religiosity on a range of health measures and health-related behaviors. The main contribution of the current study comes from the coverage and richness of the data, which allow me to use nationally representative samples to study the correlates of religion within and between more than 140 countries using more than 300,000 observations. It is almost universally true that the elderly and women are more religious, and I find evidence in favor of a genuine aging effect, not simply a cohort effect associated with secularization. As in previous studies, it is not clear why women are so much more religious than men. In most countries, religious people report better health; they say they have more energy, that their health is better, and that they experience less pain. Their social lives and personal behaviors are also healthier; they are more likely to be married, to have supportive friends, they are more likely to report being treated with respect, they have greater confidence in the healthcare and medical system and they are less likely to smoke. But these effects do not all hold in all countries, and they tend to be stronger for men than for women. |
| JEL: | I10 Z12 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15271&r=cwa |