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No. 324 |
JULY 2001 |
Vol LXXXII |
ISSN 0019-5170 |
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Contents
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The Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture and Poverty in Developinj Countries
in Asia
MEENA PATEL
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This Paper examines the poverty implications of the Uruguay
Round Agreement on Agriculture for developing countries in Asia. These
countries face absolute poverty, primarily rural poverty, as one of the most
serious problems. As the large majority of the rural poor depend on agriculture
for employment and income, agricultural growth holds the key to sustained
reduction in rural poverty. The Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture will
have significant impact on agriculture sector in areas of trade, production,
consumption and food security. Describing the main features of the Agreement,
the paper briefly reviews the poverty trends in Asia. It examines the potential
quantitative and qualitative impact of the Agreement on poverty in the Asian
region. Finally, policy options are considered within the framework of the
Agreement which would promote agricultural development and reduce poverty. |
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"Women's Development and Empowerment in Tamil Nadu" : A Performance
Appraisal
S. SUNDARI AND N.
GEETHA
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Women's development has in recent times, attracted the
interest of scholars, policy makers and administrators. Hence an attempt is
made in this research paper to analyse the status of women in terms of
demographic and economic factors, before and after independence in the State of
Tamilnadu and also to appraise the various development programmes implemented
for the uplift of women. While there has been a slight improvement in the areas
of literacy, work participation and life expectancy, the parameters of
occupational distribution, sex ratio and maternal mortality has not revealed
any significant progress. The study suggests the need for a rethinking of
defining the concept of development in terms of qualitative and quantitative
indices and it offers various strategies for the wholesome development of
women. |
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A Model of Non-Interlink
age Between a Trader and a Large Farmer in a Nash Bargaining Framework
SARBJIT CHAUDHURI
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The paper develops a model of non-interlinkage between a
trader and a large farmer. The trader faces better terms in the product market
while the farmer has a clear edge over the former in the credit market. The
paper shows that there are still gains from trade between the two, using a Nash
bargaining framework, if the trader is a price-taker in the product market. A
credit subsidy policy raises the income levels of both the players. On the
contrary, if the product market is imperfectly competitive, there may not exist
any gains from trade between the two players. If there are still gains from
trade, a credit subsidy policy raises the level of income of the farmer but may
fail to increase that of the trader. |
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An Econometric
Analysis of Child Education in an Ethnic Society
KAUSHAL K. SRIVASTAVA AND TANUJA SRIVASTAVA
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The objective of the present paper is to identify the
determinants of child em's schooling in a peculiar ethnic setting. launsari
tribe of O. P. (hills), which has been chosen for this study, is found in
concentrated form in the area of launsar-Bawar of Chakrata Tehsil of Dehradun
district. The launsaris belongs to the ancient Khasa people. The necessary
information has been collected through primary survey. For the purpose, 296
households were randomly selected and interviewed with the help of a pre-tested
interview schedule. Out of 296 households, 189 belong to Chakrata region while
remaining 107 live in the Kalsi region.
The Ordinary Least Square Method (0. L. S.) of the regression analysis has been
the main plank of the present paper. The estimates of multiple regression
analysis have been tested for multicollinearity, heteroscedasticity and serial
correlation. It is envisaged that while zero restriction method have been used
for overcoming the difficulty of what is called as the simultaneous
relationship or multicollinearity among independent variables, two tests namely
white test, Breusch-Pagan test have been employed for detecting and eliminating
the distorting effects of heteroscedasticity, depending upon the need to use
them. Similarly, in case of the detection of serial correlation through
Durbin-Watson test, Cochrane-Orcutt procedure have been used for removing the
distortions in the results owing to the presence of serial correlation. The
proposed study makes extensive use of dummy variable technique for accounting
the effects of different factors that are hard to be quantified. |
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A Study on
Production Structures of the SAARC Countries
SANGHAMITRA MAJUMDAR AND DEBESH CHAKRABORTY
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This paper compares production structures of India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka using input-output system. Various
multipliers are calculated and compared for the four nations. Then the paper
discusses row and column measures to interpret the comparability of the
structure of production of the economies concerned. All these measures show a
stronger similarity between that of India and Pakistan in their production
structures. Whereas Sri Lanka is totally incomparable with the rest of
economies, Bangladesh to a limited extent is comparable with India and Pakistan
regarding their production structure. |
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Test of
Covered Interest Parity between U.S. Dollar & Indian Rupee
ARUN KUMAR MISHRA. V. J. SEBASTIAN & A. RAMANATHAN
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The Indian financial system has been increasingly
deregulated over the years. The deregulation of domestic interest rate along
with the reforms in the external sector, especially the current convertibility
and the liberalization of the capital account are expected to integrate the
Indian economy with the rest of the World. This paper has made an attempt to
measure the integration through Covered Interest Parity test. The results show
that covered interest parity does not hold in case of India. Further reform
measures on capital account will go a long way in integrating the Indian
economy with the rest of the World. This will minimize arbitrage opportunities
and bring stability in the foreign exchange market. |
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What do the VARs Reveal?
GEETHANJALI NATARAJ, PRAVAKAR SAHOO AND B. KAMAIAH
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This paper attempts to test the long run relationships among
exports, imports, gross domestic capital formation, trade policy and GDP in
India using annual data from 1965-66 to 1997-98. The empirical framework of
Vector Auto-regressions (V AR) augmented with an error correction mechanism has
been employed. The issue of presence of a structural break while testing for
unit roots in the data, has also been tackled using Perron's (1987, 1997)
tests. The forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD) technique is employed
to account for error variance in each of the variables in the V AR system, to
innovations in own as well as other variables in the system. The FEVD test
reveals that exports and imports are largely explained by their own
innovations. The findings of the study do not lend support to the export-led
growth hypothesis in India. |
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The
Trade Regime and the Exchange Rate: Evidence from India
SWETA CHAMAN SAXENA
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This paper examines the links between India's exchange rate,
trade flows, and the trade regime. Following a severe balance of payments
crisis in 1990/91, ambitious structural reforms were undertaken which featured
trade liberalization, especially the reduction of tariffs and quota
restrictions on imports. This paper estimates some standard trade elasticities
before and after the commencement of reforms to examine the effects of this
structural change. While exports become more price sensitive following the
reforms, as expected, the price elasticity of imports behaves perversely. It is
shown that in the absence of complete time series data on actual tariffs and
QRs, the import equation suffers from omitted variable bias. An explanation of
the omitted variable bias is presented by deriving a general equilibrium
relationship between the real exchange rate, trade, and commercial policy from
an inter-temporal optimizing model. Thus, an important contribution of the paper
is to explain that when estimating trade equations for countries undergoing
trade liberalization programs, it is very important to include measures of
tariffs in order to avoid imposing a downward bias on the price elasticity. |
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