Considering Aquacultural Externality in Coastal Land Allocation Decisions in India

Commercial aquaculture in India has come under attack for having caused negative agricultural and environmental impacts. This paper formulates an interactive model of non-renewable and renewable resources to characterize land allocations between aquaculture and agriculture in ecologically and economically sustainable fashion. Through an empirical application, various economic and policy circumstances that affect the optimal land allocation mix are evaluated. The aquaculture industry must address two economic effects: off-site negative effects on renewable food and other coastal resources, and on-site self-pollution of shrimp ponds. Current regulatory and land-use policies are inadequate to address these effects.     

Pay-as-you-weigh pricing of an air ticket

This paper discusses the pay-as-you-weigh approach to airline charging, which adopts passenger’s weight as a major determinant of a fare. It specifically investigates the economic justification of the model, discusses strengths and weaknesses, evaluates various comments, and points out some potential options for implementation. The model rewards passengers who weigh less than average and/or when they reduce weight, providing financial savings and improved health benefits.     

Evaluating Efficiency of Personnel in Nepalese Commercial Banks

The failure of large and reputable banks is creating a potential threat to depositors’ hard-earned money deposited in commercial banks (CBs). Therefore, evaluation of the risk-adjusted efficiency of CBs is crucial. This study evaluates the relative efficiency of CBs personnel with an unbalanced panel dataset of 21 Nepalese CBs based on their remunerations, financial performances, and risky behaviors using data envelopment analysis, the Malmquist productivity index, and simple regression analysis. In the first step analysis, various financial ratios regarding the firm performance were considered. In the second step analysis, efficiency scores estimated in the first step analysis were adjusted by risk variables. The study shows that relatively large banks were exploiting personnel expenses, but smaller-sized banks, recently established banks, and banks with fewer branches gained more efficiency from their size. Personnel efficiency had a positive influence on the market price of stock, but it also increased the volatility of stock prices. Negative growth of both productivity indices (i.e., with and without risk adjustment) suggests poor agency services delivered by personnel and decreasing healthy conduct of Nepalese CBs.     

‘It’s the identification,stupid’: profiling senior public service managers for training and development

A review of practices of senior management development across the upper echelons of the public services of major jurisdictions shows that while the need to develop leaders is universally recognised by governments, there are still considerable gaps in the development function. One of the key gaps the article argues that is central to the training and development function is that of identification and targeting of individuals. A profiling protocol is presented that is argued could be an appropriate tool for governments to consider as they seek to link the desired competencies with the career aspirations of their public service senior managers.     

Are intrazonal trips ignorable?

Intrazonal trips are not always included in model estimation because they do not appear on a network in centroid-to-centroid travel. It is also presumed that their exclusion does not affect model results. This paper tests the above presumption by examining the assumptions of ignorable missingness. The results indicate that omitting intrazonal trips in model estimation results in biased sample. Consequently, parameter estimates get biased. The paper also compares the results of travel mode choice models by excluding and including the intrazonal trips in model estimation.     

Collusion,Co-option and Capture: Social Accountability and Social Audits in Karnataka,India

The concept of accountability has generated extensive discussion in studies of international development, linking it with good governance, democratisation, participatory development and empowerment. India's national rural employment guarantee scheme, which aims to improve the rural infrastructure and reduce poverty by providing wage work to the rural poor, involves mandatory social audit by the beneficiaries of the scheme, in order to ensure accountability of those implementing the scheme. In this paper, we examine the social audit process in a district in the state of Karnataka to ascertain the role played by the beneficiaries in achieving such accountability. We find that Vigilance and Monitoring Committees, entrusted to spearhead the social audit process in villages, consist mainly of males and cultivators, some of whom are large landowners. We also find that social audits are dominated by the local elite who stifle “voices” from below.     

Errors in variables in multinomial choice modeling: A simulation study applied to a multinomial logit model of travel mode choice

Modeling travel demand is a vital part of transportation planning and management. Level of service (LOS) attributes representing the performance of transportation system and characteristics of travelers including their households are major factors determining the travel demand. Information on actual choice and characteristics of travelers is obtained from a travel survey at an individual level. Since accurate measurement of LOS attributes such as travel time and cost components for different travel modes at an individual level is critical, they are normally obtained from network models. The network-based LOS attributes introduce measurement errors to individual trips thereby causing errors in variables problem in a disaggregate model of travel demand. This paper investigates the possible structure and magnitude of biases introduced to the coefficients of a multinomial logit model of travel mode choice due to random measurement errors in two variables, namely, access/egress time for public transport and walking and cycling distance to work. A model was set up that satisfies the standard assumptions of a multinomial logit model. This model was estimated on a data set from a travel survey on the assumption of correctly measured variables. Subsequently random measurement errors were introduced and the mean values of the parameters from 200 estimations were presented and compared with the original estimates. The key finding in this paper is that errors in variables result in biased parameter estimates of a multinomial logit model and consequently leading to poor policy decisions if the models having biased parameters are applied in policy and planning purposes. In addition, the paper discusses some potential remedial measures and identifies research topics that deserve a detailed investigation to overcome the problem. The paper therefore significantly contributes to bridge the gap between theory and practice in transport.     

Foreign ownership and the enforcement of corporate governance reforms

This study examines whether a stronger corporate governance enforcement regime influences the investment decisions of foreign portfolio investors in an emerging market context. Using a natural experiment provided by an Indian corporate governance regulatory reform introduced in 2000, but for which stricter sanctions for non-compliance were imposed in 2004 our results provide strong evidence that governance reforms that include stricter sanctions for non-compliance lead to higher foreign ownership. Depending on specifications, the difference-in-differences estimates show that, on average, the effect is up to 2.8% increased foreign ownership post regulatory reform of 2004. The paper adds to the debate on simultaneity between foreign ownership and corporate governance as we show that in the context of an emerging market corporate governance regulations are extremely important in attracting foreign investors. In the context of prevalence of weak enforcement (of existing regulations) in emerging markets, this study provides empirical support to the notion that strictly enforcing the existing governance regulations has the potential to attract higher level of foreign investment. The results suggest that policy measures aimed at attracting foreign investors in emerging markets should not only concentrate on adopting the best international corporate governance practices but should also signal strong enforcement of these regulations by assigning significant penalties for non-compliance.