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Masala: Newsletter Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Südasien, Jg. 8, Nr. 1 (Januar 2013)
No full textMasala, der vierteljährlich erscheinende Newsletter von Savifa, informiert über Neuerungen bei Savifa und im SSG "Südasien" und weist auf interessante wissenschaftliche und kulturelle Veranstaltungen wie Konferenzen, Vorträge und Ausstellungen hin. Außerdem wird aktuelle Literatur zu diversen Themenbereichen vorgestellt
Low Female Labor Force Participation in Sri Lanka: Contributory Factors, Challenges and Policy Implications
No full textEven though Sri Lanka is a fore-runner in many human development dimensions and aspects of gender equality amongst the South Asian countries, it is similar to other South Asian countries when it comes to women's participation in economic activities. Female labor force participation has not changed much in recent decades and remained stagnant at a rate around 30 to 35 percent of working age women. This rate is much lower than one would expect given the educational attainment of the female population in Sri Lanka. In order to encourage increased women s participation in economic activities, the first condition is to understand what is keeping them out of the scene. This paper analyzes the underlying reasons behind low participation rates of women in economic activities. It also investigates the employment outcomes, occupational choice, rates of returns, and skills set of economically active women in comparison with men to identify and understand the gaps. The findings have been used to suggest potential policies and programs that can help remove some of those barriers and encourage and enable women to become more economically active in the labor market
School-Based Education Improvement Initiatives: The Experience and Options for Sri Lanka
No full textMost developing countries following independence opted for strong central control and direction of the education system, partly because of limited resources and the need to plan carefully and partly because of a felt need to create a sense of national unity among diverse ethnic and linguistic groups. This meant that key areas of control and decision making, such as management of resources and personnel, curriculum, evaluation of performance, and accountability, were under central rather than local control. The empowerment of schools has two major components: school-based management and the involvement of parents and communities in the work of schools. The emphasis given to one or other of these components depends on general national policy, local traditions, and context, with the result that almost every system is unique when one considers who makes decisions, the actual decisions that are made, the nature of those decisions, the level at which they are made, and relationships between levels. Thus, there are 'strong' and 'weak' versions of school empowerment. In some, only a single area of autonomy is granted to schools, while in others the community management of schools, even the establishment of schools, is encouraged (World Bank, 2007). In this paper, the author will briefly outline the history of school empowerment in Sri Lanka with particular reference to the Program for School Improvement (PSI), which commenced in 2006. The final section of the paper contains suggestions designed to strengthen process of empowering Sri Lankan schools and improving education outcomes
The Indus Basin of Pakistan: Impacts of Climate Risks on Water and Agriculture
No full textThis study, Indus basin of Pakistan: the impacts of climate risks on water and agriculture was undertaken at a pivotal time in the region. The weak summer monsoon in 2009 created drought conditions throughout the country. This followed an already tenuous situation for many rural households faced with high fuel and fertilizer costs and the impacts of rising global food prices. Then catastrophic monsoon flooding in 2010 affected over 20 million people, devastating their housing, infrastructure, and crops. Damages from this single flood event were estimated at US dollar 10 billion, half of which were losses in the agriculture sector. Notwithstanding the debate as to whether these observed extremes are evidence of climate change, an investigation is needed regarding the extent to which the country is resilient to these shocks. It is thus timely, if not critical, to focus on climate risks for water, agriculture, and food security in the Indus basin of Pakistan
Urban Growth and Spatial Transition in Nepal: An Initial Assessment
No full textNepal is undergoing two momentous transformations-from a rural to an urbanizing economy and from a unitary to a federal state. This book aims at understanding the first of these two transitions: Nepal's journey toward becoming a predominantly urban economy. The study carries out an initial assessment of Nepal's transition from a predominantly rural to an urbanizing economy. This assessment aims at strengthening our understanding of the demographic and economic dimensions of the transition, and exploring the links between urbanization and economic growth in the context of Nepal. This book has five chapters. Chapter one presents an overview of the urban and economic transition in Nepal. Chapter two discusses the spatial patterns of Nepal's rapid urbanization and internal migration-a driving force of urban change from both a demographic and an economic perspective. Chapter three presents an initial assessment of the challenges facing Nepal's cities in urban planning and the delivery of infrastructure and services. And it discusses the spatial distribution of public expenditure for local infrastructure based on the results of a public expenditure survey carried out as part of the study. Chapter four presents a scoping assessment of the growth drivers of Nepal's urban economies and the main constraints to turning these comparative advantages into competitive advantages. And chapter five draws the main conclusions and proposes strategic directions and actions to accelerate urban-based economic growth and foster sustainable urban development
Diasporas and Outsourcing: Evidence from oDesk and India
No full textThis paper examines the role of the Indian diaspora in the outsourcing of work to India. The data are taken from oDesk, the world's largest online platform for outsourced contracts. Despite oDesk minimizing many of the frictions that diaspora connections have traditionally overcome, diaspora connections still matter on oDesk, with ethnic Indians substantially more likely to choose a worker in India. This higher placement is the result of a greater likelihood of choosing India for the initial contract, due in large part to taste-based preferences, and substantial path dependence in location choices. The paper further examines wage and performance outcomes of outsourcing as a function of ethnic connections
Saving and Growth in Sri Lanka
No full textIn the aftermath of its long-standing civil war, Sri Lanka is keen to reap the social and economic benefits of peace. Even in the middle of civil conflict, the country was able to grow at rates that surpassed those of its neighbors and most developing countries. It is argued, then, that the peace dividend may bring about even higher rates of economic growth. Is this possible? And if so, under what conditions? To be sure, Sri Lanka's high growth rate in the past three decades did not come for free. It took an increasing effort of resource mobilization in the country, with a rise in national saving from 15 percent of gross domestic product in the mid-1970s to 25 percent in 2010. This rise in national saving was fundamentally fueled and sustained by the private sector. In the future, however, the private saving rate is likely to decline because the demographic transition experienced in the country is bound to produce higher old dependency rates in the next two decades. However, the public sector has much room for reducing its deficits and increasing public investment. Similarly, external investors are likely to encounter attractive and profitable investment projects in the coming years in a reformed and peaceful environment. The government of Sri Lank has two goals regarding these issues. First, increasing public saving to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2013; and second, increasing international investment in the country by letting the current account deficit increase to 4-5 percent of gross domestic product in the coming years. If these goals are achieved, what can be expected for growth of gross domestic product in the country? To answer this question, this paper presents a neoclassical growth model with endogenous private saving, calibrates it to fit the Sri Lankan economy, and simulates the behavior of growth rates of gross domestic product and related variables under different scenarios. In what the authors call the Reform Scenario, total factor productivity would increase from 1 to 1.75 percent per year. This would produce a gross domestic product growth rate of about 6.5 percent in the next 5 years, 4.6 percent by 2020, and 3.5 percent by 2030, the end of the simulation period. This robust growth performance would be supported at the beginning mostly by capital accumulation but later on mainly by productivity improvements
The Exceptional Persistence of India's Unorganized Sector
No full textThe transformation of India's unorganized sector is important to its modernization, growth, and attainment of regional economic equality. This paper documents several key facts about India's unorganized sector in manufacturing and services. First, the unorganized sector is large, accounting for more than 99 percent of establishments and 80 percent of employment in manufacturing. Second, the unorganized sector is stubbornly persistent -- it accounted for 81 percent of manufacturing employment in 1989 and 2005. Third, this persistence is not due to particular subsets of industries or states, as most industries and states show limited change in unorganized sector employment shares. Fourth, the degree to which localized unorganized activity exists is important as it is associated with weaker production functions for manufacturing firms. Building from these facts, the paper investigates conditions promoting transformation by state-industry. Decomposition exercises find that both within and between adjustments for state-industries weakly reduce unorganized sector shares. The aggregate persistence instead comes from the covariance term, where fast-growing state-industries witness rising unorganized sector activity. Regressions quantify that growth in the organized sector by state-industry reduces the unorganized sector employment share, but only marginally reduces employment levels in unorganized activity. Analysis of the establishment size distribution highlights that entrepreneurship and larger organized sector plants are most important for transitions in the manufacturing sector, while small establishments play a key role in the services sector
The End of Technocracy? No Room for a "Bangladesh Option" in Pakistan
No full textFrancis Fukuyama (1989) famously put forward the view that the universalization of Western liberal democracy is the final form of human government. The following analysis draws on the premise that there is no alternative to liberal democracy (Diamond, 2008; Diamond & Morlino, 2005) as the best form of government
Masala: Newsletter Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Südasien, Jg. 8, Nr. 2 (April 2013)
No full textMasala, der vierteljährlich erscheinende Newsletter von Savifa, informiert über Neuerungen bei Savifa und im SSG "Südasien" und weist auf interessante wissenschaftliche und kulturelle Veranstaltungen wie Konferenzen, Vorträge und Ausstellungen hin. Außerdem wird aktuelle Literatur zu diversen Themenbereichen vorgestellt