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81. Impact of Trade Liberalization on Returns from Land: A Regional Study of Indian Agriculture

Author:
Ghosh Nilabja
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Trade liberalization, by aligning domestic prices with world prices, is envisaged to bring welfare gains to a country. In the case of Indian agriculture, owing to the vastness and diversity of the sector, the impact is likely to be profoundly unequal across regions especially when liberalization is double-edged, acting on both output and input sides. This paper views returns from land resource as a primary determinant of farmers' economic well-being and production incentive and considers paddy both as the dominant support for the rural population and as a product with comparative advantage, as most studies have demonstrated. Working with state and sub-state level data and taking account of the differences in technologies, productivities and transport costs, the paper finds that the gains vary regionally and may not be positive in all cases when both output and input prices are globally aligned.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

82. Financial Sector Development — Futile or Fruitful? An Examination of the Determinants of Savings in Sri Lanka

Author:
George Mavrotas and Roger Kelly
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper documents the financial and institutional developments of China during the past two decades, when China was successfully transformed from a rigid centralplanning economy to a dynamic market economy following its unique path. We empirically examine the relationship between financial development and economic growth in China by employing a panel sample covering 31 Chinese provinces during the important transition period 1986-2002. Our evidence suggests that the development of financial markets, institutions, and instruments have been robustly associated with economic growth in China.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
South Asia

83. Convergence Club Empirics: Some Dynamics and Explanations of Unequal Growth of Unequal Growth across Indian States

Author:
Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay
Publication Date:
11-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper documents the convergence of incomes across Indian states over the period 1965 to 1998. It departs from traditional analyses of convergence by tracking the evolution of the entire income distribution, instead of standard regression and time series analyses. The findings reveal twin-peaks dynamics-the existence of two income convergence clubs, one at 50 per cent, another at 125 per cent of the national average income. Income disparities across states seem to have declined over the 1960s, only to increase over the subsequent three decades. The observed polarization is strongly explained by the disparate distribution of infrastructure, and that of education, and to an extent by a number of macroeconomic indicators; that of capital expenditure and fiscal deficits.
Topic:
Economics and Emerging Markets
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

84. The Measure of India: What Makes Greatness?

Author:
Joydeep Mukherji
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
I join you tonight to consider India on the scales of greatness. In other words, to ask: by what standards do people regard a state as great? And how does India conform to those standards? I must say at the outset, that these are not questions on which I personally would fixate. Greatness in terms of power is not a standard that moves me as a human being. My impulse when looking at countries is to say, “what's so great about being great?” I think a country's taxi drivers tell us more about it than the number of nuclear bombs it might possess. The number of Ph.D. holders, engineers, and writers driving taxicabs in a country, and where they came from, tells me a lot about the country we're in and the country from whence they came. The taxi driver in Iran who complains bitterly about the ayatollahs and wants to talk about pop music and freedom, tells me something about Iran. The engineer who fled Nigeria for the opportunity possible in America, even if it's driving a cab, tells me something about Nigeria and the U.S. Great power has little to do with it.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
America, Iran, South Asia, India, and Nigeria

85. India's Slow Conversion to Market Economics

Author:
Joydeep Mukherji
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
According to the Bible, Saul of Tarsus converted almost instantly to Christianity on the road to Damascus. Subsequently, he neither ate nor drank for three days. The conversion of the world's second largest country, India, to a new way of life based on free markets and private enterprise will not be so rapid or disruptive. Nevertheless, India's conversion to market economics will, like Saul's, be thorough and deep. It will increasingly affect all of us in the global village, in which Indians constitute 17% of the inhabitants.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

86. Privatization: From Policy Formulation to Implementation: The View from the Inside

Author:
Montek Singh Ahluwalia
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
It is both a privilege and a pleasure for me to deliver this year's Annual Fellows Lecture at the Center for Advanced Study of India. For many years in India, I used to receive an annual update on the activities of the Center when Dr. Francine Frankel visited Delhi and it is therefore particularly pleasant to visit the Center in person.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and New Delhi

87. One Third of the World's Growth and Inequality

Author:
Danny Quah
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper studies growth and inequality in China and India—two economies that account for a third of the world's population. By modelling growth and inequality as components in a joint stochastic process, the paper calibrates the impact each has on different welfare indicators and on the personal income distribution across the joint population of the two countries. For personal income inequalities in a China-India universe, the forces assuming first-order importance are macroeconomic: Growing average incomes dominate all else. The relation between aggregate economic growth and within-country in- equality is insignificant for inequality dynamics.
Topic:
Development and Economics
Political Geography:
China, South Asia, India, and Asia

88. Creating an Environment: Developing Venture Capital in India

Author:
Rafiq Dossani and Martin Kenney
Publication Date:
05-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
In the last decade, one of the most admired institutions among industrialists and economic policymakers around the world has been the U.S. venture capital industry. A recent OECD (2000) report identified venture capital as a critical component for the success of entrepreneurial high-technology firms and recommended that all nations consider strategies for encouraging the availability of venture capital. With such admiration and encouragement from prestigious international organizations has come various attempts to create an indigenous venture capital industry. This article examines the efforts to create a venture capital industry in India.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States, South Asia, and India

89. India/Pakistan — Peace Pipe

Publication Date:
07-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
India and Iran have proposed the construction of a natural gas pipeline connection. While the project would be a major engineering achievement, the principal challenge will be gaining Islamabad's consent for it to traverse Pakistani territory. Pakistan's parlous relations with Tehran and Delhi, the latter little improved by last weekend's summit, will make this difficult.
Topic:
Economics, Energy Policy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, India, and Asia

90. India — Arms Scandal

Author:
Caspar Fithin
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
On March 15, Defence Minister George Fernandes resigned. Fernandes' resignation follows last week's revelations about cash-for-influence exchanges with journalists posing as arms dealers. Although the Union coalition government is likely to survive the affair, its prestige has been severely damaged. The most serious potential of the Tehelka scandal is the government's loss of the moral authority to forge ahead with its economic reform programme. Opponents of liberalisation, both on the right and the left, are attempting to draw political capital from the affair.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
South Asia and India