334 research outputs found
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To bt or not to bt? Risk and uncertainty considerations in technology assessment
No full textThe acreage under the transgenic Bt cotton seeds in India has risen significantly since its legalization in
the year 2002. Discussions on the advantages from the technology have focused on increments in
productivity and income, without much analysis on risk. We point out that claims on productivity gains
seem to be misplaced, as appropriate counterfactuals do not exist for the same hybrids. In this article
we analyse production costs and crop incomes in drought years to test a simplistic theory of risk based
on first principles. We employ a mixed-methods framework to draw inferences by combining data from
two cross-sectional surveys in Gujarat (Saurashtra and Southern-Plains) and Maharashtra (Western
Vidarbha) for the period 2009-10 and compare it with unit-level data for the corresponding regions
from a nationally representative sample for the period 2002-03. Empirical evidence, though limited,
brings out the problem of how a high cost technology could be associated with higher risks and may be
dominated by traditional alternatives under certain conditions. Ethnographic accounts from the field
provide qualitative support to our understanding of potential risks and uncertainties associated with the
new technology
Agriculture-nutrition linkages and policies in India
No full textThis paper looks at some key entry points for agriculture to influence nutrition and suggests policies for
nutrition-sensitive agricultural development, within the current policy framework. In addition, it reviews
three key agriculture-food programs for their nutrition sensitivity at the policy level, using a
convergence framework. The three key entry points for agriculture-nutrition linkages are: inclusive
agriculture growth, food prices, and women in agriculture. It provides policy options for strengthening
the linkages between agriculture and nutrition
Corporate governance and dividends payout in India
No full textThis paper investigates the association between the corporate governance and the dividends payout for a panel of Indian firms over the period 1994-2000. We explain the differences in the dividend payout behavior of the firms with the help of firm’s financial structure, investments opportunities, dividend history, earnings trend and the ownership structure. We find a positive association of dividends with earnings trend and investments opportunities. Debt equity ratio is found to be negatively associated, whereas past in-vestment opportunities exert a positive impact on dividends. Ownership by the corporate and directors is positively related with dividends payout in level, and corporate ownership is negatively related in square. Institutional ownership has inverse effect on dividends in comparison to corporate ownership in levels as well as in its squares. We find no evidence in favor of association between foreign ownership and divided payout growth
Inflation-openness relationship: A Panel approach for developing countries
No full textThis paper aims at verifying the existence of significant relationship between inflation and openness in the context of the developing countries. The dataset comprises 53 developing countries located at five different regions for the years from 1975 to 2002. With money and quasi money growth, GDP in terms of SDR, different measures of degree of openness, namely, export ratio, import ratio and trade ratio, and dummies for country, year, region and exchange rate regimes as the explanatory variables, a wide range of variants of the basic dynamic specification containing the levels and first lags of all variables have been estimated. The dynamic models were estimated by the system GMM method. The static specifications give results in favour of the existing theoretical and empirical literature, that the openness has a significant negative effect on inflation, but this is clearly seen only in the period after 1989. The analysis of pre-1989 data shows that only the fixed exchange rate regime has had a significant negative effect on inflation. The results of the dynamic specification show that openness does not have any significant effect on inflation if country effects are controlled for, but the lag of the money growth has a significant negative effect hinting that the effect of openness might have been captured in the latter. A notable result in this analysis is that openness affects inflation positively, while its lag affects it negatively. In addition to the panel data analysis, a simple time series analysis of inflation in selected countries has been carried out using ARMA (1,1) model for two different time spans during one of which the country under examination was more open than the other span, to check for any change in the significance of inflation inertia, assumed to be captured by the coefficient of the lag of inflation. The results support the hypothesis that openness might enhance inflation inertia for India and not the other countries
The Theory of current accounts and the developing world: An Exploratory empirical analysis
No full textThe question of the determinants of the current account has received enormous attention and has spawned an entire generation of papers for the industrialised countries [3]. However, the explanatory power of the theories put forward in explanation of the CA behaviour have been, at best, weak. There has, been very little work on the CA behaviour of developing countries, insofar as empirical evaluation of the competing theories are concerned. In this pa- per, an attempt has been made to explain the CA behaviour of the developing countries in a framework developed and evaluated for the advanced industrialised countries. Preliminary results indicate that these models do not possess any significant degree of explanatory power and are not suited, in their current form, to analyse the CA behaviour of the developing world. The surmise is that government consumption as well as differing institutions, tastes and other factors affect these countries differently and any model that does not,explicitly, account for these disparities is unlikely to have significant explanatory power
Notional Contracts: The Moral economy of contract farming arrangements in India
No full textThis study examines the moral economy of firm-farmer contracts in contract farming schemes in India, bringing together data from field surveys, conducted between 2007 and 2010, of 42 agribusinesses and 484 contract farmers from multiple commodity sectors. The central argument of this paper is that contract farming relationships in India are seen more as relationships and less as contracts, with formal enforcement mechanisms playing only a peripheral role in maintaining and supporting transactions.
This is related only in part to the costs and inefficacy of formal enforcement mechanisms. Both firms and farmers prefer to operate outside the prescribed legal-institutional structure whenever these structures are perceived to undermine the handshake ethic. The findings indicate that state policies that presume legal institutional development to be necessary and sufficient for promoting agribusiness interaction with farmers might be misplaced if not merely ineffective
Safe Gambles? Farmer perceptions of transactional certainty and risk-return tradeoffs in contract farming schemes in Southern India
No full textThis paper examines the idea that contract farming arrangements in developing countries even while offering farmers insurance against certain kinds of risks could simultaneously exacerbate other risks or entail new risks of their own. If correct, farmer perceptions of risks and returns would vary systematically across farmers with different contracting status and also across schemes. Using survey data that elicits subjective distributions of returns and psychometric mapping of risk perceptions from farmers, the study finds that contract farming, not unlike its alternatives, is associated with multiple
dimensions of uncertainty and sources of risk, in ways that likely influence participation
Inside Tarini Bhavan: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain's padmarag and the richness of South Asian feminism for furthering gender-just, unsectarian human development
No full textMultidimensions of urban poverty: Evidence from India
No full textContent of abstract This paper provides a robust multidimensional evaluation of intra -urban
differences. The hypothesis that joint consumption of public goods of individuals in non slum urban
India dominates those of individuals living in slums is accepted while the hypothesis that
consumption of private goods of individuals in non slum urban India dominates those of individuals
living in slums is rejected
Agflation and the PDS: Some issues
No full textIn the context of the current public policy focus on rising food prices and their implications
for food security, this paper examines two major issues raised: (i) Universalization of the
public distribution system; and (ii) its implications for procurement and buffer-stocks. This
paper is based on the recent evidence on the profile of public distribution system, its targeted
version in particular, household’s reliance on the public distribution system and the open
market, and its policy implications. The paper concludes that the need of the hour is not
universalisation of the PDS but a revision of the food security norm, a BPL-friendly PDS and
its efficient functioning