6 research outputs found
Equivalence Scales and Poverty Measurement: A Study of How Income, Sub-National Location, Technological Scale and Gender Impact on Food Consumption Scale Economies and Hence Lving Standards in Sri Lanka
No full textAccurately identifying who in the population is the poorest of the poor is critical for developing efficient and effective poverty reduction strategies. A key part of this task is to compare household welfare across households of different sizes, compositions and sub-national locations. Yet the typical equivalence scales used in this process by most policymakers impose harsh and unrealistic assumptions on household behaviour and the extent to which households of different sizes realise economies of scale in consumption (CSE). These assumptions include the notion that household tastes are unrelated to income (homothetic preferences) and no substantial differences exist in the extent to which CSE can be realised across households located in different sub-national regions, time periods and gender compositions. This thesis focuses mainly on analysing the CSE associated with food consumption, labelled as FCSE, since expenditure on food represents the major share of household expenditure for poor households.
The main objective of this thesis is to investigate how household characteristics and their behavioural choices affect the ability of these households to achieve FCSE, and thereby their poverty status, using Sri Lanka as a case study. In doing so, the relationships between FCSE and a number of household socio-economic and demographic characteristics and household behavioural choices are investigated. The characteristics considered comprise household size, location, income, and gender of the head of household; the behavioural choices considered comprise the decision to consume home-grown food, and the decision to adopt domestic technology to aid food preparation and consumption.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Full Tex
Modelling Regional Consumption Patterns in Australia*
No full textIn 1977, Stigler and Becker hypothesised that ‘tastes neither change capriciously nor differ importantly between people’. In an interregional context, this implies that irrespective of differences in income and geography, consumers in different regions are similar. Studies conducted 25 years ago using data for Australian states found support for this hypothesis. However, due to the changing ethnic composition of the population in the states of Australia, differences in consumption patterns between states are emerging. Using recent regional consumption data and demand models, we investigate in this study whether there are regional disparities across the six Australian states, and find that there are in fact differences.No Full Tex
Revisiting Wagner's and Keynesian's propositions and the relationship between sectoral government expenditure and economic growth
No full textExisting literature on the link between government expenditure and economic growth shows mixed results. This paper, while analysing the impact of government expenditure on economic growth using the ARDL framework, also investigates whether the difference in data types is one of the reasons for the conflicting findings reported in the literature about Wagner's law and Keynesian hypothesis. We use Sri Lanka as a case study for this analysis and use three different forms of model specifications at the aggregate and disaggregated (sectoral) levels. Results indicate that both Wagner's and Keynesian's propositions are supported by the Sri Lankan data in the long-run for all three model specifications and the results are inconclusive in the short-run. This suggests that Wagner's law and Keynesian hypothesis are sensitive to the data type used and the results could be different depending on whether the analysis is made in the short-run or long-run. Capital and recurrent expenditures are found to have a positive effect on economic growth in the short-run as well as long-run. At the disaggregated level, expenditure on agriculture and health positively impact economic growth in the long-run, while welfare expenditure has a negative effect. These findings provide important insights for policymakers to consider when allocating sectoral level expenditure budget. This study also provides insights on allocating government expenditure towards achieving United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals which countries across the globe are aiming to achieve by 2030.Full Tex
Green growth transition and carbon neutrality nexus: A comparative study on the top carbon emitters
No full textThis is a comparative study that investigates the role of green growth, green technological innovations, agricultural eco-efficiency and trade openness on carbon neutrality in the top three carbon emitting countries, namely, China, the USA and India, using panel quantile regression with quarterly data for the time period of 2010–2022. The results reveal different findings which have important policy implications. Firstly, carbon emissions vs green growth and carbon emissions vs green technological innovation have a significant U-shaped relationship, which indicate that when green growth and green technological innovations increases, the rate of carbon emissions continues to decline up to a threshold point and start to increase thereafter. Secondly, carbon emissions vs agricultural ecoefficiency has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the carbon emissions, showing that when agriculture eco-efficiency increases the rate of carbon emissions continues to increase up to a threshold point, and starts declining afterwards. Thirdly, trade openness increases the carbon emissions resulting an increase in the environmental degradation and may hinders achieving the carbon neutrality target. The carbon emissions reduction policies such as carbon taxes, promoting green trade, promoting green growth and emission trading schemes must acknowledge and incorporate the interplay among key stakeholders to enhance their effectiveness.Full Tex
emission nexus: an application to OECD countries
No full textThe Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis has been used to explain the relationship between environmental degradation and economic condition. This study formulates an augmented EKC framework to incorporate the effect of agriculture, forestation and energy consumption on CO2 emission and estimates the model using the data from 24 OECD countries between 1990 and 2018. The study utilizes individual-country analysis and panel dynamic analysis for the empirical investigation. The results show a positive relationship between CO2 emission and fossil fuel use – a 1% increase in fossil fuel consumption will increase CO2 emission by 0.76%, and a negative relationship with renewable energy – a 1% increase in renewable energy consumption will reduce CO2 emission by 0.14%. The impact of forest cover and agricultural production on CO2 emission is mixed at the single-country level. The panel fixed-effect results reveal that a 1% increase in agricultural production and forest cover leads to a 0.04% and 0.63% increase in CO2 emission, respectively. There is also strong evidence supporting the presence of the EKC hypothesis. The global CO2 emission reduction strategies, such as carbon taxes and emission trading schemes, must acknowledge and incorporate the interplay among -key macro-level variables revealed in this study to enhance their effectiveness.Full Tex
The implications of income dependent equivalence scales for measuring poverty in Sri Lanka
No full textPurpose: The purpose of this paper is to test whether household preferences satisfy the assumption of base-independence, to examine the effects of household income on equivalence scales and thereby food consumption economies of scale and to examine how far conventional poverty rates require adjustment when scale economies in food consumption are taken into consideration.
Design/methodology/approach: To achieve these aims, the authors use a Pendakur (1999) adaptation of the test of base-independence, and income dependent Engel (1895) equivalence scales.
Findings: In Sri Lanka, the hypothesis of base-independence is rejected: the equivalence scales increase with household income both at the national and the sectoral level, that is urban, rural and estate sectors. This suggests that low-income households enjoy greater scale economies. After adjusting for scale economies, urban, rural and estate poverty headcount ratios decline by 3.2, 8.8 and 13.7, respectively, while at the national level the decline is about 8.3.
Research limitations/implications: The results are based on the assumption that all of the adults in the households have identical tastes, irrespective of their gender and age. Furthermore, the survey data exclude three districts in the northern province of Sri Lanka due to resettlement activities took place after the civil war.
Practical implications: Higher scale economies among the poor imply that poverty among low-income households is overstated when using traditional measures of poverty rates.
Originality/value: The novelty of this paper is that it provides insights on the effect of income on food consumption economies of scale and implications of this phenomenon on poverty estimates in the context of a developing country like Sri Lanka.Griffith Business School, Department of Accounting, Finance and EconomicsNo Full Tex
