ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF TRADE IN INDIA

Abstract

This article aims at contributing to environment trade debate by evaluating the impacts of international trade on emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides for the Indian economy during 90s using Input-Output techniques. The article has constructed an index of pollution terms of trade. Using the Input-Output table of 1991–92 and 1996–97 for India we have computed pollution terms of trade for the content of CO₂, SO₂, and NO _x . Results show that the indices are below 100, indicating that India produces goods that are more environment friendly than goods it imports, thus challenging the pollution haven hypothesis for India. The article has also offered explanations for these results.     

Simultaneous estimation after selection and ranking and other procedures: The negative exponential case

We considerk (≥2) independent negative exponential populations with unknown location parameters and unknown but equal scale parameter. We incorporate the existing purely sequential and three-stage sampling procedures for selecting the “best” population and study the asymptotic second-order characteristics of the proposed fixed-size simultaneous confidence regions for the location parameters constructed after selection and ranking. Some direct estimation procedures have also been discussed.     

Sequential approach to simultaneous estimation of the mean and variance

The problem of simultaneous estimation of the mean and variance of a normal distribution has been studied. We propose a semi-circular region _n ={(a,b)':b>0} of radiusd, which has approximately a preassigned coverage probability. Asymptotic efficiency and asymptotic consistency (asd0) of our proposed sequential procedures have been proved.Research partially supported by U.S. Army Research Grant No. DAAG29-76-G-0038.     

Multi-stage point and interval estimation of the largest mean ofK normal populations and the associated second-order properties

Summary We havek independent normal populations with unknown meansμ ₁, …,μ _k and a common unknown varianceσ ². Both point and interval estimation procedures for the largest mean are proposed by means of sequential and three-stage procedures. For the point estimation problem, we require that the maximal risk be at mostW, a preassigned positive number. For the other problem, we wish to construct a fixed-width confidence interval having the confidence coefficient at least 1-α, a preassigned number between zero and one. Asymptotic second order expansions are provided for various characteristics, such as average sample size, associated risks etc., for the suggested multi-stage estimation procedures.     

Structural Adjustment Programs: Some New Findings

Recent studies of structural adjustments highlight two results: intensive adjustment-lending countries performed better than nonadjustment-lending countries during the late 1980s, and middle-income countries performed better than low-income countries. However, the methodology has ignored the distribution of the growth rate in a country over the period 1985 to 1990. When this distribution of the growth rate is taken into account, low-income adjustment-lending countries performed better than middle-income countries during the late 1980s, especially when the growth rate of high-income economies is held constant.     

A consistent and asymptotically efficient two-stage procedure to construct fixed width confidence intervals for the mean

For a normal distribution, a two-stage procedure has been proposed for constructing a fixed width confidence interval for the mean when the variance is unknown. It has all the properties ofStein's two-stage procedure, and at the same time it is asymptotically efficient. We have also discussed the non-normal case as inChow/Robbins [1965].     

Estimation after sequential selection and ranking

Problems of estimating parameters from normal populations after the completion of the purely sequential selection and ranking methodology are addressed. Various second-order asymptotic characteristics associated with natural estimators are presented.     

Sequential simultaneous estimation of the mean and variance: The rate of convergence

We reconsider the problem of simultaneous estimation of the mean and variance of a normal distribution along the lines of Mukhopadhyay (1981), and derive the rate of convergence of the appropriately normalized stopping time to normality. The Berry-Esseen type results for randomly stoppedU-statistics have been utilized repeatedly in this context.     

Modelplasticity and abductive decision making

Decisions in Economics and Finance - ‘All models are wrong but some are useful’ Box (Robustness in statistics, Elsevier, pp 201–236, 1979). But, how to find those useful ones...     

Correction: Abductive Inference and C. S. Peirce: 150 Years Later

Journal of Quantitative Economics -