334 research outputs found
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Social group disparities and poverty in India
No full textThis paper seeks to provide a profile of social group disparities and poverty in India,
where social groups are classified as scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other social
groups, and examine the factors underlying differences in levels of living between these
groups and for each group separately. The paper argues that social group disparities in
levels of living are the result of historically rooted ‘social disadvantages’ for scheduled
castes and scheduled tribes, by way of social exclusion and physical exclusion
respectively, which continue to operate in contemporary Indian society
Macroeconomic effects of public investment in infrastructure in India
No full textThis paper attempts to build an aggregative, structural, macroeconometric
model for India. Investment and output in the model are disaggregated
into four sectors, viz., (a) agriculture including forestry & fishing, (b) manufacturing,
(c) infrastructure, which includes power, transport, communication and construction
and (d) services sector, covering all other activities. The model emphasizes the interrelationships
between internal and external balances and also the relation between
money, output, prices and balance of payments. A unique feature of the model is that
it incorporates the savings-investment identity. The model also tries to link economic
growth with poverty reduction. Annual time series data for the period 1978-79 to
2002-03 are used for this purpose. Three-stage least squares method is used to
estimate the model. The model is validated for its in-sample forecasting ability. A few
counter factual policy simulations relating to public investment in infrastructure are
undertaken to illustrate the usefulness of the model for analyzing the policy options in
a simultaneous equations framework.
A preliminary trend analysis has shown slowing down of the economy
during ‘90s and thereafter. There are also significant structural shifts in production
from agriculture to infrastructure and services in the Indian economy. The estimated
model indicated significant crowding-in effect between private and public sector
investment in all the sectors. Counter factual policy simulations of sustained increase
in public sector investment in infrastructure, financed through borrowing from
commercial banks, shows substantial increase in private investment and thereby
output in this sector. Further, due to increase in absorption, real output in the
manufacturing and services sectors also seem to increase, which sets-in motion all
other macro economic changes. Due to rise in sectoral (and aggregate) output, price
level and money supply seem to decline in the short-run. Due to sustained nature of
the policy change, the impacts get strengthened over time and benefit the economy. A
10% sustained increase in public sector investment in infrastructure, which is less
than 0.4% of GDP, can accelerate the macro economic growth by nearly 2.5% without
causing any inflation. Further, this increase in income will lead to nearly 1%
reduction in poverty in India. This re-assures the potential for achieving the much
debated 10% aggregate real GDP growth in the Indian economy
Food consumption and nutritional status in India: Emerging trends and perspectives
No full textThe paper reviews the trends over three decades in the consumption of cereals, calories and micronutrients and nutritional status based on anthropometric measures using the data sets of NSS, NNMB and NFHS. It provides an explanation for the slow growth of nutrient intake and slow reduction in malnutrition. The paper demonstrates that multiple factors influence the nutritional well-being of a child and argues that besides improving the income of a household, there is a need to improve the health and educational status of mothers
Commercialisation of sustainable energy technologies
No full textCommercialization efforts to diffuse sustainable energy technologies (SETs) need to be
sustainable in terms of replication, spread and longevity, and should promote goal of
sustainable development. Limited success of diffusion through government driven pathways
illustrates the need for market-based approaches to SET commercialization. This paper
presents a detailed treatment of the pre-requisites for adopting a private sector driven
“business model” approach for successful diffusion of SETs. This is expected to integrate the
processes of market transformation and entrepreneurship development with innovative
regulatory, marketing, financing, incentive and intermediary mechanisms. Further, it
envisages a public-private partnership driven-mechanism as a framework for diffusion
leading to technology commercialization
Distant labour supply, skills and induced technical change
No full textTo analyze the consequences of new technologies, which make it possible to employ distant labour, we model a developed country with high and medium-skilled labour interacting with an emerging market economy (EME) with medium and low-skilled labour. Expansion in labour supply induces medium-skill biased technical change, which raises the demand for such labour. As a result, inequalities tend to fall in the developed country, skill premiums rise marginally in the EME, but equality rises because labour employed in the low-skilled sector shrinks. Inequality falls across the countries since average wages, information and access rise in the EME
An Alternative approach to measure HDI
No full textThe popularly known Human Development Index (HDI) is obtained through linear averaging
(LA) of indices in three dimensions - health, education and standard of living. LA method
assumes perfect substitutability among the indices. We question its appropriateness and
propose an alternative measure, which is the inverse of the Euclidian distance from the ideal.
Following Zeleny (1974), we refer to this, as the Displaced Ideal (DI) method. Through an
axiomatic characterization, the paper shows that the advantages in the DI method are the
following. Uniform, as against skewed, development is rewarded. Through an ideal path, it
signals a future course of action. These signify that a given increment in any one dimension,
with other dimensions remaining constant, has a greater significance for the index at a lower
level than at a higher level. In other words, stagnancy in the dimension that has a lower
value is more serious than stagnancy in other dimensions. Finally, an empirical illustration
has been done by taking the statistics in Human Development Report 2006. We strongly
propose that the DI method be considered over the LA method in the construction of HDI
Energy infrastructure for a high humane and low carbon future
No full textPresently India is facing the twin challenge of energy universalization as well as emission reduction.
Nearly 0.4 billion people in India– mostly residing in rural areas– do not have access to electricity and
more than 0.8 billion people do not use modern cooking fuels. Provision of energy services however
needs to take into account the global temperatures rise, which if to be limited to 2°C more from its
pre-industrial value, Green House Gas (GHG) emissions must be halved by 2050 from its 1990 level.
Energy infrastructure plays a key role to meet this dual challenge of universalization of energy services
and reduction of energy-induced emissions. Assessing India’s infrastructure, this study presents the high
humane (Energy universalization) and low carbon scenarios and discusses investment needs, financing
mechanisms and the key policy issues
Rewarding innovation efficiently: Research spill-overs and exclusive IP rights
No full textWe investigate the conditions for the desirability of exclusive intellectual property rights for innovators,
as opposed to weak rights allowing for some degree of imitation and ex-post competition. The
comparison between the two alternatives reduces to a specific “ratio test,” which suggests that strong,
exclusive IP rights are preferable when competition from potential imitators is weak, the innovation
attracts large R&D investments, and research spill-overs are small
Returns to education in India: Some recent evidence
No full textThis paper estimates returns to education in India using a nationally representative survey. We estimate
the standard Mincerian wage equation separately for rural and urban sectors. To account for the
possibility of sample selection bias, Heckman two-step procedure is used. The findings indicate that
returns to education increase with the level of education and differ for rural and urban residents.
Private rates of returns are higher for graduation level in both the sectors. In general, the
disadvantaged social groups of the society tend to earn lower wages. We find family background is an
important determinant affecting the earnings of individuals. Using quantile regression method, we show
the effect of education is not the same across the wage distribution. Returns differ considerably within
education groups across different points of the wage distribution. Returns to education are positive at
all quantiles. The results show that the returns are lower at the bottom quantiles and are higher at the
upper quantiles
Urban transport sustainability indicators – Application of multi-view black-box (MVBB) framework
No full textIn a recent work Nathan and Reddy (2011a) have proposed a Multi-view Black-box (MVBB) framework
for development of sustainable development indicators (SDIs) for an urban setup. The framework is
flexible to be applied to any domain or sector of urban system. In this paper the proposed MVBB
framework is applied for transportation sector of Mumbai city. The paper begins with a discussion on
transportation sector and its unsustainability links and trends. It outlines the concept of sustainable
transportation system and reviews some of the prominent sustainable transportation indicator
initiatives. In order to formalize sustainable development indicators (SDIs) for transportation sector, the
study collates the indicators from literature, placed them in Mumbai’s context and classified them into
the three dimensions of urban sustainability—economic efficiency, social wellbeing and ecological
acceptability