Private Tutoring,Wealth Constraint and Higher Education

We show that when the effectiveness of private tutoring (PT) exceeds a PT‐effectiveness threshold, poor families become disadvantaged in sending their children to college and, thus, inequity arises. At the same time, the average spending on PT of the poor families is smaller than that of the wealthy families. Tax and transfer policies are able to amend the inequity, but student loans for college tuition and more establishments of colleges may have limited effects on reducing inequity.     

Macroeconomic Determinants of Crime: Evidence from India

This paper examines the relationship between crime, inflation, unemployment, and real GDP per capita in India. Based on the national-level data, the Johansen cointegration test confirms the presence of cointegration relationship between the variables. The Toda–Yamamoto Granger causality test suggests that macroeconomic indicators, especially unemployment, can significantly affect crime in India. Based on the state-level data, the ordinary least squares results corroborate the effect of inflation on crime even after controlling for governance. However, they fail to verify the relationship between crime, unemployment, and real GDP per capita.

     

International trade and unionization: Evidence from India

We exploit exogenous variation in tariffs to examine the impact of import competition on unionization and union wages in a developing country. Using a combination of nationally representative household data (National Sample Survey Organization) and nationally representative industry‐level data (Annual Survey of Industries) from India, we find that net‐import industries that experienced larger cuts in tariffs also experienced larger declines in unionization. In addition, we find that these industries also experienced larger increases in union wages. These results are consistent with the predictions of an efficient bargaining framework that we extend to endogenize the union formation decision by allowing for a fixed cost of union formation. We also conduct a back‐of‐the‐envelope calculation to show that the total wage gains to unionized workers marginally exceed the total wage losses to deunionized workers.     

Exchange Rate Regimes and Inflation: Evidence from India

Abstract

Exchange rate stability is crucial for inflation management as a stable rate is expected to reduce domestic inflation pressures through a ‘policy discipline effect’ – restricting money supply growth, and a ‘credibility effect’ – inducing higher money demand and reduced velocity of money. Alternatively, the ‘impossibility trillema’ of Mundell (1961a Mundell, R. A. (1961a). Capital mobility and stabilization policy under fixed and flexible exchange rates. Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 29, 475–485. doi: 10.2307/139336[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1961b Mundell, R. A. (1961b). Flexible exchange rates and employment policy. Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 27, 509–517. doi: 10.2307/139437[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) predicts that in the presence of an open capital account, a stable exchange rate may lead to lack of control on monetary policy and, hence, higher inflation. Using a monetary model of Inflation, this paper investigates the impact of the ‘empirically-claimed’ de facto stable exchange rate regime on inflation in India during different sub-periods of exchange rate stability. The results show that the impact of exchange rate regime on inflation is not visible in the Indian case, which could be because of the offsetting sterilization policy undertaken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during expansionary money supply growth resulting from its large-scale intervention to even out exchange rate volatility.     

Market efficiency and international diversification: Evidence from India

This study evaluates one of the most important emerging markets, India (Bombay Stock Exchange and Indian National Exchange), for its efficiency and for its potential to offer diversification benefits to international investors. Market-wide tests include; 1) contemporaneous relationship, 2) Granger type causality and 3) day-of-the-week effect. Tests on individual Indian stocks include: 1) panel estimation of Granger causality, 2) stock-by-stock estimation of Granger causality and 3) runs test. In sum, Indian markets are well integrated with the international equity markets, a characteristic that lowers the international diversification benefits. While day-of-the-week effect is an international spillover, it may be possible to predict individual Indian stocks' returns through causality with international equity markets and through momentum trading techniques.     

Electricity provision and industrial development: Evidence from India

I investigate the effect of electricity provision on industrialization using a panel of Indian states for 1965-1984. To address the endogeneity of investment in electrification, I use the introduction of a new agricultural technology intensive in irrigation (the Green Revolution) as a natural experiment. As electric pumpsets are used to provide farmers with cheap irrigation water, I use the uneven availability of groundwater at the start of the Green Revolution to predict divergence in the expansion of the electricity network and, ultimately, to quantify the effect of electrification on industrial outcomes. I present a series of tests to show that the electrification channel remains the most important one among alternative explanations that could link groundwater availability to industrialization directly or indirectly. Results show that an increase in one standard deviation in the measure of electrification is associated with an increase of around 14% in manufacturing output for a state at the mean of the distribution.     

Trade Liberalization and Wage Inequality: Evidence from India

We evaluate empirically the impact of the dramatic 1991 trade liberalization in India on the industry wage structure. The empirical strategy uses variation in industry wage premiums and trade policy across industries and over time. In contrast to most earlier studies on developing countries, we find a strong, negative, and robust relationship between changes in trade policy and changes in industry wage premiums over time. The results are consistent with liberalization‐induced productivity increases at the firm level, which get passed on to industry wages. We also find that trade liberalization has led to decreased wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers in India. This is consistent with the magnitude of tariff reductions being relatively larger in sectors with a higher proportion of unskilled workers.     

Child gender and parental borrowing: Evidence from India

Discrimination against girls is well-documented, especially in Asia. We show that women try to level the playing field for their daughters by taking on debt. But wealth asymmetry between mothers and fathers perpetuates gender inequality across generations.     

Determinants of women's financial inclusion: Evidence from India

A number of studies have analyzed the determinants of financial inclusion in India, but few if any have focused specifically on the factors that shape women's access to finance. This paper draws on the trove of women-specific data collected in the fourth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), conducted in 2015–16 in India, to examine the factors that influence women's access to finance. The results indicate that while the forces that shape women's access to finance function at multiple levels, micro-level factors appear to be powerful drivers of inclusion. The analysis reveals that household-level economic indicators like wealth, gender of household head and their rural-urban location are crucial, but so are individual-level characteristics which explain approximately 83% of the variation in the multilevel regressions. Informal gender norms that govern women's mobility and economic activity crucially influence the ability of women to access loans and open bank accounts.     

民营资本的宗族烙印:来自融资约束视角的证据

本文使用中国明朝至1990年各个城市的族谱数据测度宗族文化,并构建中国民营上市企业的融资约束KZ指标,研究后发现,地区内的宗族文化越浓厚,民营企业面临的融资约束越小,在考虑内生性问题后结论依然稳健。机制检验发现,信任、信息交互和道德规范是三条潜在的影响路径,并且在经历行业危机的冲击时,前述影响更明显。进一步的研究显示,在宗族文化浓厚的地区,更多宗族成员参与企业的股权融资,企业可以依托宗族从上下游获得更多商业信用,但并不能从正规的金融机构获取更多的信贷支持。并且发现,对于在当地拥有较大宗族势力以及在本地经营的企业家而言,宗族文化的影响更为明显,而人口流动带来的人口结构变迁会削弱宗族文化的影响。最后,在宗族文化浓厚的地区,企业的融资成本更低。     

The Private Benefits of Corporate Control:Evidence from China

By analyzing block share transfers in China during 1999-2006,this study provides estimates of the private benefits of corporate control in China.We find that those controlling blocks are usually priced at a significant positive premium compared to those comparable non-controlling blocks.The benefits of corporate control vary with shareholders structure,firm characteristics and institutional variables.In particular,targets with a high intangible asset ratio have less benefits of control,cross-listing in B or H shares curbs the extract of private benefits and companies acquired by private firms are associated with higher private benefits.Moreover,it is found that benefits of control are negatively associated with market economy and factor market development index.We argue that firms with higher private benefits experience more tunneling activities by their controlling shareholders.     

Nutrient consumption in India: Evidence from a village study

Adequate nutrition is generally regarded as a core dimension in any evaluation of well‐being. In the context of India, a country with a high prevalence of poor nutrition, there is a dearth of nutrition studies with adequate coverage and comparability. Using primary data on food consumption from a village in a poorer state of India, we study the consumption of five key nutrients, namely, calories, protein, carbohydrates, calcium and iron. Among the various determinants of nutrition, we find that expenditure has a significant impact on nutrition and the expenditure elasticity of nutrition is comparatively high for all the key nutrients. By correcting for potential endogeneity, we demonstrate a causal link from expenditure and food subsidy provided by the public distribution system to nutritional intake. There is some evidence that household characteristics such as household size and gender of the household head matter for nutrition; however, they are not robust under various specifications.     

Child labor and the minimum wage: Evidence from India

This study examines how changes in the minimum wage affect child labor in India. The analysis uses repeated cross sections of India's NSSO employment data from 1983 to 2008 merged with data on state-level minimum wage rates. Theoretically, the impact of the minimum wage on child work could go either way, so empirical evidence from a country with high rates of child labor and a myriad of minimum wage laws across states and industries helps to lessen the ambiguity. Results indicate that regardless of gender, in urban areas, a higher minimum wage reduces child labor in household work. In rural areas a similar result applies for girls while household labor does rise for boys. The minimum wage has virtually no impact on child work outside of the home across urban and rural areas.     

Crime,incentives and political effort: Evidence from India

Political representatives with criminal backgrounds are considered a great problem in many countries. In India, public disclosure of the large share of politicians currently facing criminal charges has sparked a heated public debate and emerging literature assessing the causes and effects. We develop two hypotheses based on our theoretical considerations. Based on the coding of published affidavits and a comprehensive set of three proxies to measure effort in the 14th Lok Sabha over the 2004–2009 legislative period, we put these hypotheses to an empirical test. Members of the parliament (MPs) facing criminal accusations exhibit on average about 5% lower attendance rates and lower utilization rates in a local area development fund, but only insignificantly lower parliamentary activity. In line with our hypotheses, these differences decline in the development level of the constituency - a proxy for higher rent-seeking possibilities and monitoring intensity. We argue and demonstrate why these negative relations should constitute an upper bound estimate of the causal effect, and show that even under conservative assumptions the effect is unlikely to be caused by unaccounted selection-bias.     

机构投资者与分析师行为——基于定向增发解禁背景

文章以上市公司定向增发解禁为背景,从利益冲突的角度检验了不同增发对象在解禁后交易动机的差异对解禁前分析师盈余预测乐观程度和准确性的影响.研究发现,定向增发股票解禁时,机构投资者出于抛售获利的动机向分析师施压,导致分析师在解禁前为其所持有的股票发布了更加乐观的盈余预测,而且这些乐观预测的准确性更低;而原股东在定向增发股票解禁后倾向于继续持有,分析师在解禁前没有发布乐观有偏的预测.进一步的研究显示,机构投资者即将解禁的股份占公司总股本的比例越高,在临近解禁日时,分析师对该上市公司的预测越乐观,准确性也越低.现有文献认为机构投资者对分析师的乐观倾向具有抑制作用,而文章的经验证据表明,机构投资者在涉及自身利益时会削弱这种抑制作用.     

Cointegration, Government Spending and Private Consumption: Evidence from Japan

Assuming a CRRA preference, this paper shows that there is a cointegration restriction implied by the intra-temporal first-order condition in the consumption function. This restriction predicts a cointegrated system of government consumption, private consumption, and their relative price. Our analysis indicates that, first, Johansen's VECM confirms the theoretical prediction that is supported by the data of Japan; moreover, Bierens' (1997) nonparametric estimator severely contradicts with the theoretical model and fits the data poorly; second, Japanese people have increasing willingness to rearrange their consumption over time. Besides, the intratemporal relationship between private and government consumption remains relatively stable over time.     

Private Wealth in a Developing Country:Evidence from South Africa

The point of departure of Piketty's influential Capital in the Twenty‐First Century (2014) was the dramatic growth of private wealth‐income ratios in advanced economies between 1970 and 2010. Using official balance sheet data for South Africa—the first country to publish such data in the developing world—, this paper examines to what extent this re‐emergence of private wealth was also experienced in the developing‐country context. First, we find that the South African current wealth‐income ratio is very close to its 1975 level, and much lower than those of Piketty's sample of advanced economies. Second, we show that the discrepancy is explained not only by South Africa's relatively low savings rates, but also by the reduction of wealth before and during the transition to democracy in the 1990s. Since then, private wealth recovered significantly, but the U‐shaped relationship does not support the argument that there is a clear correlation between the capital‐income ratio and capital share.     

The Dynamics Between Inflation and Inflation Uncertainty: Evidence from India

This study examines the causal nexus between inflation and inflation uncertainty. In this regard, conventional Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) models and Stochastic Volatility (SV) models are used to measure inflation uncertainty and Bai and Perron (Econometrica 66:47–78, 1998; J Appl Econom 18:1–22, 2003) test is used to identify structural breaks in inflation. The empirical evidence derived from the monthly data for the period from June 1961 to April 2011 suggests that the measure of inflation uncertainty obtained from SV model is more reliable than the measure obtained from GARCH model and also the causal nexus between inflation and inflation uncertainty seems to be significantly conditional upon the measure of uncertainty used. The structural break test identifies four episodes of inflation during the sample period, and the causality between inflation and its variability varies across different episodes. The inflation and its variance seem to be independent of each other during the first two regimes that cover the period from 1960 to 1980 and on the contrary, during the later period largely bidirectional causality is observed. Further, inflation seems to exert positive impact on inflation uncertainty, whereas inflation uncertainty has negative impact on inflation.

     

Globalisation and Gender Inequality: Evidence from Labour Market in India

This paper examines quantitative and qualitative dimensions of employment issues in India from gender lens. Inequality in quantitative aspects have been analysed gender gap in work participation, composition and structure of employment. The study finds that female work participation in India has declined sharply despite faster economic growth and improvement in female literacy outcomes. The magnitude of decline is sharper in case of illiterate, women from less privileged class and rural backgrounds. Similarly, even after two decades of economic reform, female workers are highly concentrated in low productive, less remunerative and unpaid family labour category of self employment activities. Considering the qualitative dimension of jobs, the paper finds that the condition of female workers are more vulnerable as they are highly concentrated in informal sector and informal jobs with no employment security, no social security, and are being paid relatively lower wages compared to male workers in most of the sub-sector. The paper argues for an urgent policy intervention to ensure access to decent jobs and to provide protection to these vulnerably placed women workers.