The effect of household characteristics on living standards in South Africa 1993–1998: a quantile regression analysis with sample attrition

This paper examines whether the dismantling of apartheid has resulted in an improvement in the standard of living for the vast majority of South Africans. The study is based on a panel data set from the Kwazulu‐Natal province. We use weighted quantile regressions to examine the distribution of standards of living, which corrects for the potential bias arising from non‐random sample attrition. Our results show that there has been a significant increase in the spread of the distribution of household expenditure of the non‐white households residing in Kwazulu‐Natal province. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamics of capital account and current account in Sri Lanka

This paper enquires the dynamics of current account and capital account in Sri Lanka for the period 2001:Q1 to 2016:Q1 and also examines the role of some policy variables such as exchange rate and interest rate in this dynamics. Estimated autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound testing approach to cointegration followed by error correction representation of the ARDL model have found that current account is caused by capital account and exchange rate, where capital account causes to produce a deficit in current account. In the dynamic adjustment of current account due to exchange rate, an evidence of J-curve phenomenon is noticed. Capital account is neither caused by current account nor by exchange rate but interest rate has a positive impact on it. Robustness of these findings is testified by the vector autoregression model, Wald test of Granger causality followed by an impulse response analysis and a variance decomposition analysis. These analyses, in addition, establish a negative impact of interest rate on current account. With the best of knowledge this is the first study that reveals the dynamics of current and capital account of Sri Lanka. Such a dynamics is critical from the policy perspective. Policy makers should caution before capital account liberalization.     

Testing for Son Preference in South Africa

Evidence from many developing countries suggests that parentshave a preference for sons over daughters. This has been referredto as son preference. This paper uses individual level unitrecord data to test the son preference hypothesis in South Africa.We use an accelerated hazard model to estimate the durationbetween successive births and our results indicate that sonpreference exists only for the Indian community in South Africa.Indian households are observed to have a higher duration betweenchildren following the birth of a son, irrespective of the numberof children they already have. For the rest of the population,there is very little evidence of son preference. Preferencefor sons could be the result of a combination of factors includingreligious beliefs and social customs such as the dowry system,lineage and familial and kinship ties.     

Scope of improvement in water usage efficiency in manual dishwashing: A multicountry study by questionnaire survey

Over recent decades, water conservation have become increasingly an utmost important issue for debate, and this includes the domestic sector. Reducing demand water by improving the efficiency of water use in domestic sector requires an understanding of how water is used and in what ways water savings can be realized. The focus of this global, web‐based, consumer questionnaire survey was to analyze individual consumer attitudes towards using water in manual dishwashing and understand the likelihood of a prospect of changing the daily manual dishwashing method resulting to a more efficient domestic usage of water. This study was designed to investigate the manual dishwashing technique used in the 5249 households of nine different countries ‐ China, Germany, Italy, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, India, South Africa and Argentina. Besides socio‐demographics, technical questions like cleaning steps, hygiene questions motivational question, environmental awareness questions, questions on payment for water and electricity, questions on information sources about household work were included in the study. It was found that the awareness to conserve water was common among the Asian participants but it necessarily was not practiced in the households as individual washing of dishes was found to be quite high. Among the many outcomes, important one was that ‘running tap method’ was found to be most prevalent (86%) among Russian participants, complimenting their detached approach towards conserving domestic water usage. In South American countries like Brazil (66%) and Argentina (51%), high occurrence of ‘running tap rinse’ was found to be a common practice, confirming the lack of conscious use of water in manual dishwashing in the subcontinent. Based on the overall responses, awareness of a new and efficient technique of manual dishwashing could be propagated through the most voted mediums of Internet (81%) and TV (69%).     

Microcredit Programme Participation and Household Food Security in Rural Bangladesh

Lack of access to credit prevents poor households in developing countries from diversifying into income‐generating activities that could safeguard them against unforeseen shocks and seasonality, leaving them susceptible to food deprivation, even when aggregate food supplies are adequate. Microcredit programmes help these households to access financial capital that could help improve their food security situation. We examine how microcredit affects different measures of food security; namely, household calorie availability, dietary diversity indicators and anthropometric status of women of reproductive age (15–49 years) and children under the age of 5 years. We find that microcredit programme participation increases calorie availability both at the intensive and extensive margins, but does not improve dietary diversity and only has mixed effects on the anthropometric measures. We also find that the effect of microcredit participation on food security may be non‐linear in which participation initially has either no effect on food security or may actually worsen it, before improving it in the longer run. Our results help to explain why existing short‐term evaluations of microcredit sometimes do not show any positive effects.     

Inflation Dynamics in India: Relative Role of Structural and Monetary Factors

This paper examines the relative role of structural and monetary factors in the variation of inflation in India over the period 1996–1997:Q1 to 2013–2014:Q4. The paper finds that both the monetary factors and the output gap has significant role. The role of the output gap in inflation is found more prominent than the monetary factors like broad money growth, interest rate and change in exchange rate. The depreciation of exchange rate and broad money growth stimulates inflation where as the interest rate is identified as an anti-inflationary monetary instrument. In view of a comprehensive policy for price stability, it is imperative to know the role of sectoral output gap in inflation. The paper, therefore, enquires the relative role of the primary, secondary and tertiary sector output gap in inflation. Output gap of each of these three sectors provokes inflation where the contribution of tertiary sector output gap is found to be the maximum followed by the primary sector and the secondary sector output gap. The prominent role of the output gap and comparatively passive role of monetary factors does not necessarily imply a non-effective monetary policy but suggests that controlling inflation only through the monetary management may not be effective.

     

A quantitative analysis of employment guarantee programmes with an application to rural India

This paper examines the welfare effects of a workfare programme in an economy where agents face exogenous income shocks and are unable to insure themselves through private markets. A dynamic general equilibrium model is calibrated using data from two ICRISAT villages in the Indian state of Maharashtra, which had a functioning Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS), in the period 1979–84. The optimal wage and the welfare gains of the program depend on how productive the EGS is, relative to the private sector. When agents are paid the optimal wage rate, they do not hold the non-interest-bearing asset for precautionary savings and all insurance is provided by the EGS. There are significant welfare gains from paying the optimal wage rate as opposed to simply paying the marginal product of labour in the EGS.     

Intra‐household bargaining power and household expenditure allocation: Evidence from Iran

This article examines the role of intra‐household bargaining power on household expenditure patterns in Iran to see whether women’s empowerment can achieve similar results in Iran as we have seen it achieve in other countries of the world. This study is insightful because it tells us whether Iranian women, who have experienced both economic and noneconomic constraints over many years, can utilize increased power toward economic development. The bargaining power is measured by the sex ratio in the marriage market. Using the Household Income and Expenditure Survey in Iran, we find that greater bargaining power of women contributes significantly toward greater provision of education and health expenditure within the household, creating a potential for an increase in welfare for the next generation.     

FIRM COMPLIANCE WITH SOCIAL INSURANCE OBLIGATIONS WHERE THERE IS A WEAK SURVEILLANCE AND ENFORCEMENT MECHANISM: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM SHANGHAI*

Abstract. This article examines why firms in Shanghai comply or over‐comply with social insurance obligations in a regulatory environment where the expected punishment for non‐compliance is low. Our first finding is that firms found to be in non‐compliance in the first audit in 2001 were moved into a separate violation category and the probability of being reaudited in 2002 was significantly higher if the firm was in that category. Our second main result is that, across the board, firms which were reaudited continued to underpay in 2002 but the extent of underpayment was significantly reduced.     

Determinants of Nominal Interest Rates in India

Journal of Quantitative Economics - This paper examines the role of monetary factors in the variation of nominal interest rates in India for the deregulated regime of interest rates and the...