334 research outputs found
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Growth of the urban shadow, spatial distribution of economic activities and commuting by workers in rural and urban India
No full textUnlike migration, scant attention has been paid to the phenomenon of commuting by workers in developing countries. This paper fills this gap by using a nationally representative data set from India to analyze factors that affect the decision of workers to commute across rural and urban areas daily. Our results suggest that regions with large peripheral urban areas or concentration of secondary sector jobs are more likely to have commuting workers. Regional rural and urban unemployment rates and rural-urban wage differentials are important push and pull factors in the decision to commute
Do futures markets help in price discovery and risk management for commodities in India?
No full textIn 2003, trading of commodity futures shifted from single commodity, regional exchanges to national exchanges that trade multiple commodities. This paper examines price discovery and hedging effectiveness of commodity futures after this change and concludes that,on average, futures prices do discover information relatively efficiently,but helps to manage risk less efficiently. The paper uses the viewpoint of the hedger to conjecture what factors may improve hedging effectiveness. These include
high settlement costs caused by few and widely dispersed delivery centers and an unreliability of warehouse receipts,a mismatch between the grade specified in the futures contract and what is available for delivery in the market, and disruptions caused by various policy interventions in both commodities spot and futures markets
User right as a mezzanine capital investment: Innovations in infrastructure debt financing
No full textBank-led infrastructure financing in India has subsided in a reflection of the micro-prudential risks faced by banks. Bond-based financing is constrained by an incomplete bond market. Foreign borrowing is particularly inappropriate as it forces currency mismatch upon infrastructure projects. In the search for innovative methods of infrastructure financing this paper introduces the possibility of "User right" as one component of infrastructure financing. The key insight is to harness users, from amongst the universe of investors, as financiers with a high yield tradeable debt instrument that derives its value from a rebate on user charges. Liquidity would come about through trading at exchanges, which would yield a liquidity premium. Users as bond-holders would have the incentive to perform monitoring functions, which would enhance accountability. Public interest vested in public infrastructure may improve existing institutional mechanism
The Cult of statistical significance - A Review
No full textI present a review and extended discussion of The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice and Lives by Deirdre McCloskey and Stephen Ziliak, a work that raises important issues related to the practice of statistics and that has been widely commented upon. For this review, I draw upon several other works on statistics and my personal experiences as a teacher of undergraduate econometrics
Creating youth employment in Asia
No full textSeveral countries in the Asia-Pacific region are experiencing demographic changes. Over 60 per cent of the world's youth live in Asia and the Pacific, which translates into more than 750 million young women and men aged 15 to 24 years. They represent a key asset for the countries of this region. Young people are a major human resource for development, key agents for social change and driving force for economic development and technological innovation. But harnessing these resources is a major challenge. The youth challenge is considered as the most critical of the 21st century's economic
development challenge. in this context, this paper examines the labour market characteristics for adults and the entire population. Then it analyses challenges and opportunities in labour market for youth. Next, the paper discusses the existing and needed policies for taking care of the challenges in overall and youth labour
markets. It also provides conclusions and recommendations. We also highlight the gender issues in the paper. The recommendations include direct policies such as active lbour market policies, social protection programmes, fair migration and indirect policies like pro employment macro policies. There are significant links between creating employment opportunities for the youth and enhancement of human development. Employment and livelihoods particularly productive youth employment has impact on most of the indicators of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They can reduce poverty, under nutrition, improve the education, health and gender equality
'Arranged' marriage, education, and dowry: A Contract-theoretic perspective
No full textThis paper propounds a contract-theoretic model where dowry acts as a screening device to differentiate grooms of varying qualities. In 'arranged' marriage settings that are characterized by incomplete information in the sense that the true quality of the groom remains unobservable to the bride, and in the presence of observable traits like education that are easier for the better quality groom to achieve, education-dowry contracts can potentially serve as a screening instrument. Moreover, increasing dowry levels can be explained through increased educational attainments brought about by
modernization and government policies. The paper also discusses historical and narrative evidences in support of its main hypotheses
Corporate debt market in India: Lessons from the South African experience
No full textDevelopment of long-term debt markets is critical for the mobilization of the huge magnitude of funding required to finance potential businesses as well as infrastructure expansion. India has been distinctly lagging behind other emerging economies in developing its long-term corporate debt market. Traditionally, bank finance, coupled with equity markets and external borrowings have been the preferred funding sources. The domestic corporate debt market suffers from deficiencies in products, participants and institutional framework. Large fiscal deficit, high interest rates, inadequate market
infrastructure, lack of transparency, excessive regulatory restrictions on the investment mandate of financial institutions, and distortionary tax and stamp duty regime are some of the key issues that may potentially hamper the development of a well-functioning corporate debt market in an emerging economy. Several of these issues need the political will to bring about legislative, regulatory and fiscal reforms. In order to gain insight into the required reforms, it may be useful to look at an economy that implemented not only the regulatory but also the policy level reforms in debt markets. South Africa is one such economy where the long term debt market reforms lasted nearly two decades starting from early 1980s. In this paper, we study the development of the South African corporate debt market, which underwent a significant transformation from being moribund into one that is vibrant and large. We also draw lessons for the Indian corporate debt market from the South African experiences
The Imprecision of volatility indexes
No full textConcerns about sampling noise arise when a VIX estimator is computed by aggregating several imprecise implied volatility estimates. We propose a bootstrap strategy to measure the imprecision of a model based VIX estimator. We find that the imprecision of VIX is economically significant. We propose a model selection strategy,where alternative statistical estimators of VIX are evaluated based on this imprecision
Strategic trade policy for network goods oligopolies
No full textWe analyze strategic trade policy for differentiated network goods oligopolies under alternative scenarios, when there is export-rivalry between two countries. We show that, under price competition without managerial delegation, it is optimal to tax (subsidize) exports, if network externalities are weak (strong). But, the opposite is true under price competition with relative performance based managerial delegation in firms. In contrast, under quantity competition, the optimal trade policy always involves subsidization of exports. Nonetheless, the optimal rate of export-subsidy under quantity competition is always higher than that under price competition. We also show that, under quantity (price) competition without managerial delegation, trade policy interventions in the presence of sufficiently strong (weak or very strong) network externalities lead to higher social welfare of each exporting country compared to that under free-trade. However, under quantity (price) competition with managerial delegation, trade policy interventions result in Pareto-inferior outcomes always (unless network externalities are strong)
Banks competition, managerial efficiency and the interest rate pass-through in India
No full textIf banks solve an inter-temporal problem under adverse selection and moral hazard, then bank specific factors, regulatory and supervisory features, market structure, and macroeconomic factors affect banks's loan interest rates and their spread over deposit interest rates. To examine post financial-reform interest rate pass through for Indian banks after controlling for all these factors, we estimate the determinants of commercial banks loan pricing decisions, using dynamic panel methods. The several factors commercial banks consider, apart from the policy rate, limit policy pass through. More competition reduces policy pass-through but it can improve monetary transmission provided it improves managerial efficiency