A dynamic analysis of expenditure patterns in rural India

Recent generalisations of the Linear Expenditure System have concentrated on its restrictive assumption of separable preferences but underplayed its equally restrictive assumption of linearity in income, i.e., constant marginal budget shares. This reflects the data base which has usually been long time series of disaggregated consumer expenditure data. Such generalisations are inappropriated for developing countries which rely on highly aggregated commodity expenditure data from budget surveys with more variation in income responses is introduced, variation in prices. A general procedure for non-linearising income but rather limited applied to some recent LES generalisations to generate still further geenralisations and then used to analyse rural India's expenditure behaviour. The results decisively support the suggested generalisation and, also, provide evidence in favour of dynamic behaviour and habit persistence on budget data.     

Estimating regression coefficients from survey data by asymptotic design-cum-model based approach

Postulating a linear regression of a variable of interest on an auxiliary variable with values of the latter known for all units of a survey population, we consider appropriate ways of choosing a sample and estimating the regression parameters. Recalling Thomsen’s (1978) results on non-existence of ‘design-cum-model’ based minimum variance unbiased estimators of regression coefficients we apply Brewer’s (1979) ‘asymptotic’ analysis to derive ‘asymptotic-design-cummodel’ based optimal estimators assuming large population and sample sizes. A variance estimation procedure is also proposed.     

Economic liberalization and wage inequality in the presence of labour market imperfection

This paper is purported to analyze the consequences of liberalized economic policies on the skilled–unskilled wage inequality in the developing countries using a three sector general equilibrium model reasonable for at least a few developing economies. The analysis of the paper has found that the wage inequality rises unambiguously due to a reduction of import tariff from the low-skill manufacturing sector. However, an inflow of foreign capital produces a favourable effect on the wage inequality under a reasonable factor intensity condition. Interestingly, contrary to the common wisdom, a policy of labour market reform may raise the competitive unskilled wage and improve wage inequality under reasonable condition.     

Duty-free zone,unemployment, and welfare a note

We consider a small open Harris-Todaro economy with the urban sector consisting of a duty-free zone and a non-duty free zone. There is no capital mobility between the urban sector and the rural sector, but capital is perfectly shiftable between the two sub-sectors of the urban sector. A policy of expanding the duty-free zone through the reduction in import-duty on intermediate goods in that sector ultimately lowers the level of output of that sector. This policy also raises the level of unemployment, lowers national income (social welfare), and increases economic inequality. If, however, the tariff on the final product is reduced in that sector, we get the opposite result.     

A non-negativity criterion for a certain variance-estimator

Summary A well-known strategy for the estimation of a finitepopulation-total is to use the ratioestimator based on the Midzuno-Sen scheme of sampling. Unbiased estimators of the variance of this estimator are not always non-negative though they are required to be so from practical considerations. One such estimator is shown to be non-negative for all variate-values under an easily verifiable condition on the parameters of the sampling strategy.     

Business Group Affiliation and Corporate Sustainability Strategies of Firms: An Investigation of Firms in India

In spite of an overwhelming importance of business groups (BG) in the economic development of many countries, systematic inquiry on how the BGs and their affiliated firms approach and contribute to shared value creation and sustainable development is rare. In this paper we address this research gap by investigating two related questions—do BG-affiliated firms differ from non-BG firms in their corporate sustainability strategy (CSS) and how does BG affiliation influence the relationship between stock of fungible resources and CSS of firms? Drawing from the BG literature we theorize that BG-affiliated firms tend to adopt of both environmental and social sustainability strategies more than non-BG firms. We also argue that although according to resource-based view, the stock of fungible resources of firms positively influences CSS, BG affiliation negatively moderates the relationship between stock of fungible resources and CSS of firms. Stock of fungible resources matters less for BG-affiliated firms in undertaking CSS as they have access to resources of the BG network. We test our theoretical predictions using a proprietary data set of 163 Indian publicly listed firms, out of which 76 are BG-affiliated firms belonging to 74 BGs. The data for corporate environmental and social sustainability strategies have been obtained by administering a survey instrument among the top level executives of the participating firms. We find support for our theoretical predictions that signify that BGs and their affiliates make important contributions to shared value creation and sustainable development in emerging economies like India.     

International trade and unemployment: Theory and cross-national evidence

We present a model of trade and search-induced unemployment, where trade results from Heckscher-Ohlin (H-O) and/or Ricardian comparative advantage. Using cross-country data on trade policy, unemployment, and various controls, and controlling for endogeneity and measurement-error problems, we find fairly strong and robust evidence for the Ricardian prediction that unemployment and trade openness are negatively related. This effect dominates the positive H-O effect of trade openness on unemployment for capital-abundant countries, which turns negative for labor-abundant countries. Using panel data, we find an unemployment-increasing short-run impact of trade liberalization, followed by an unemployment-reducing effect leading to the new steady state.     

Human capital, inequality, endogenous growth and educational subsidy: A theoretical analysis

This paper develops an endogenous growth model with dualism in human capital accumulation of two types of individuals. The government imposes a proportional income tax on rich individuals and uses the tax revenue to finance the educational subsidy given to poor individuals. We find out the properties of the optimal tax financed educational subsidy policy in the semi-stationary equilibrium of the model using the technique of Stackelberg differential game.     

FDI in agricultural land, welfare and unemployment in a developing economy

The paper purports to examine the consequences of foreign direct investment (FDI) in agricultural land in a developing economy using a three-sector general equilibrium model with simultaneous existence of unemployment of both skilled and unskilled labour. The analysis finds that FDI in agriculture does not only improve national welfare unequivocally but also mitigates the unemployment problem of both types of labour. The paper theoretically justifies the desirability of flow of FDI in agriculture in the developing economies.     

Quality‐of‐life as chronotopefication and futurization: Subsistence consumer experiences in India

In the poverty‐ridden settings in neo‐liberal India, we explore how subsistence consumers construct their quality‐of‐life (QOL). Drawing on the concepts of chronotope and futurization, we posit two additional dimensions of subsistence consumers' construction of QOL namely, chronotopefication and futurization. Our findings suggest that chronotopefication and futurization are defining processes of subsistence consumers' construction of QOL perceptions; their sacrifices, efforts, and costs, however painful they may be, would be perceived as QOL enhancing from the prism of chronotopefication and futurization; and subsistence consumers chronotopize and futurize QOL for the whole extended household within the intergenerational temporal space by focusing on stable input–outcome pathways. Based on the evidence, we propose QOL as chronotopefication and futurization framework (QOL‐CFF). The framework suggests that subsistence consumers construct QOL as chronotope building, futurized and having a symbolic effect. They consider current agonies as a foundation for future building.