IMPORT LIBERALIZATION AND PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN INDIAN MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES IN THE 1990s

Total factor productivity growth in Indian manufacturing decelerated in the 1990s, a decade of major economic reforms in India. Econometric analysis presented in the paper indicates that the lowering of effective protection to industries favorably affected productivity growth. The results suggest that gestation lags in investment projects and slower agricultural growth in the 1990s had an adverse effect on productivity growth. The analysis reveals that underutilization of industrial capacity was an important cause of the productivity slowdown. With corrections for capacity utilization, the estimated productivity growth in the 1990s is found to be about the same as in the 1980s.     

Managing perceived risk for credit card purchase through supplementary services

The present study aims to understand the significance of supplementary services as nonpersonal sources of information to consumers to handle perceived risk associated with the purchase of credit card services. The impact of supplementary services is particularly studied towards functional risk and psychological risk. The study is based on primary data collected by a survey with the help of a questionnaire administered through personal interviews. It is found that supplementary services can play a significant role in controlling functional and psychological perceived risk associated with credit card services. Marketers of credit cards can enhance the value of services to customers and can thus enhance purchase possibilities by reducing perceived risk through supplementary services that are controllable. Perceived risk in financial services marketing is an important factor from the consumers’ point of view for purchase decisions and is also an issue of significance to service marketers. It is an original attempt to examine the relationship between perceived risk and supplementary services.     

Shifting from Undersupply to Oversupply: Does NHS Workforce Planning Need a Paradigm Shift?

The National Health Service in England is currently halfway through the most austere decade in its history. Finding ways to improve health care efficiency is crucial to ensure the sustainability of the health system. While evidence of supply‐induced demand (SID) has often been used as an economic argument to restrict labour supply, in the UK the risks of SID may be much less than in health care systems with more deregulated entry into the market post‐qualification and with fee‐for‐service payment systems. This article focuses on the problem of staff shortages in nursing. We argue that, although an oversupply of some types of labour can add to cost pressures by increasing demand for health care services and that the cost of training staff is high, undersupply and poor labour planning lead to unintended consequences such as poor labour productivity. As a result there is a case for public policy to target an oversupply of nurses in the future. If government reforms to nurse funding help, they are to be welcomed.