`

No. 324

JULY 2001

Vol LXXXII

ISSN 0019-5170

Contents


 

  The Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture and Poverty in Developinj Countries in Asia

MEENA PATEL
 

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.


"Women's Development and Empowerment in Tamil Nadu" : A Performance Appraisal

 S. SUNDARI AND N. GEETHA
 

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.


    A Model of Non-Interlink age Between a Trader and a Large Farmer in a Nash Bargaining Framework

SARBJIT CHAUDHURI
 

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.


  An Econometric Analysis of Child Education in an Ethnic Society

KAUSHAL K. SRIVASTAVA AND TANUJA SRIVASTAVA
 

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.


   A Study on Production Structures of the SAARC Countries

SANGHAMITRA MAJUMDAR AND DEBESH CHAKRABORTY
 

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.


   Test of Covered Interest Parity between U.S. Dollar & Indian Rupee

ARUN KUMAR MISHRA. V. J. SEBASTIAN & A. RAMANATHAN
 

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.


What do the VARs Reveal?

GEETHANJALI NATARAJ, PRAVAKAR SAHOO AND B. KAMAIAH
 

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.


 The Trade Regime and the Exchange Rate: Evidence from India

SWETA CHAMAN SAXENA
 

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.