DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION ANALYSIS OF SMALL FARMERS AND LANDLESS IN INDIA*

The small farmers and landless in India are faced with the vicious cycle of low incomes, low savings, low investment and uneconomic size of operational holdings and often are nonviable. Using data for the Haryana State of Northern India for 1977/78, the linear discriminant function was used to identify those factors which will make the majority of small farmers and landless in India a viable entity. Analysis of these data indicated that per hectare fertiliser use, area under high yielding crop varieties, operational size of holding and working capital are the factors which affect the viability of the small farmers and landless. As compared to the simple regression analysis discriminant function approach has been found an effective tool for discriminating the two social groups and for predicting the sponsored social change. However, the use of the discriminant function may be limited if the qualitative independent variable has more than two classes and its orderings are not in sequence.     

Business self-regulation and consumer protection in India: A critique

In India, as a result of the enactment and implementation of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 there has been an increased amount of self-regulation by the public as well as by the private corporate sector. The mounting pressure by consumer organisations and the growing number of cases filed by consumers before the three-tier quasi-judicial Consumer Disputes Redressal Agencies established under the 1986 Act have propelled the corporate sector in India to become more socially accountable then ever before. Though it may be too early to comment on the success or failure of this Act, it has nevertheless initiated a process of change at least in the behaviour of the urban business community and has coerced it to regulate itself.The paper purports to highlight and evaluate the present state of business self-regulation in India. The author has critically examined the Codes of Ethics recently announced by some sections of the business community in India. He has also endeavoured to cite a few recent cases argued before the Consumer Forums, more particularly by the consumers' associations, where instead of resorting to protracted legal battles, industry has reconciled itself to consumers' demands. Thus the central theme of the paper is to show how the 1986 Act has propelled the corporate sector to resort to self-regulation and to critically examine this new development. The author concludingly argues that in order to achieve the much-cherished goal of social change in India, much still remains to be accomplished and that there is a need for a co-ordinated approach to solve the problem of consumer protection as law alone may not be effective.

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Zusammenfassung Anbieter-Selbstregulierung und Verbraucherschutz in Indien: Eine Kritik. In Indien hat es als Folge der Einführung des Verbraucherschutzgesetzes 1986 ein starkes Anwachsen der Selbstregulierung gegeben, und zwar sowohl bei den öffentlichen Anbietern wie auch bei den privaten Anbietern. Es gab einen wachsenden Druck auf die anbietende Wirtschaft durch die Verbraucherorganisationen und durch die Tatsache, da\ die Konsumenten eine wachsende Zahl von Verfahren bei den dreistufigen quasigerichtlichen Verbraucherschiedsstellen eröffnet haben, die aufgrund des Gesetzes von 1986 eingerichtet worden sind. Jedenfalls hat dieser Druck ein deutliches Anwachsen der sozialen Verantwortlichkeit bei der indischen Wirtschaft bewirkt. Obwohl ein abschlie\endes Urteil über den Erfolg oder Mi\erfolg dieses Gesetzes noch nicht möglich ist, lä\t sich aber jetzt schon feststellen, da\ es einen Wandel zumindest im Verhalten der städtischen Anbieter bewirkt hat und zu mehr Selbstegulierung geführt hat.Der Autor setzt sich kritisch mit den ethischen Verhaltensrichtlinien auseinander, die einzelne Branchen angekündight haben. Er führt au\erdem einige neuere Fälle an, die vor den Verbraucherforen verhandelt wurden, wo die beklagten Unternehmen den Verbraucheransprüchen entgegenkamen statt in langwierige gerichtliche Verfahren zu flüchten. Für das wichtige Ziel eines sozialen Wandels in Indien bleibt nach Meinung des Autors allerdings noch mehr zu tun; auf jeden Fall ist das Problem des Konsumentenschutzes allein auf gesetzgeberischem Wege nicht zu lösen.

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Presently he is on Nehru-Centenary British Commonwealth Fellowship Award (1990–93) and is doing research at the Department of Law, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG.

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The author is thankful to the Post-Graduate Tutor and his learned supervisor Dr. Werner F. Menski for his valuable comments on the earlier draft of his paper.     

Redefining psychological contracts with the U.S. work force: A critical task for strategic human resource management planners in the 1990s

The well-publicized waves of layoffs in recent years have destroyed the long-standing psychological contract between employees and their employers which promised pay, promotion, and job security in exchange for worker skills, effort, and loyalty. This article provides empirical support for the transformational effect layoffs have had on psychological contracts and discusses the critical role human resource management must play in establishing and developing new contracts to guide future employment relationships between employers and employees. Implications for both academics and practitioners are provided. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A capital adequacy buffer model

We develop a new capital adequacy buffer model (CABM) that is sensitive to dynamic economic circumstances. The model, which measures additional bank capital required to compensate for fluctuating credit risk, is a novel combination of the Merton structural model, which measures distance to default and the timeless capital asset pricing model (CAPM), which measures additional returns to compensate for additional share price risk. We apply the model to a portfolio of mid-cap loan assets over a 10-year period that includes pre-GFC (global financial crisis), GFC and post-GFC. An analysis of actual defaults over this period shows the model to be far more accurate in determining the capital adequacy levels needed to counter credit risk than an unresponsive ratings model such as the Basel standardized approach.     

Embedded autonomy,political institutions,and access orders

We construct a model of “embedded autonomy,” the idea that the closeness of bureaucrats and business people may lead to growth-promoting policies by the government, though at the risk of leading to crony capitalism. We analyze how the level of monitoring to control corruption and the weight given to the future affect the nature of the possible outcomes. We explore possible tradeoffs between growth and inclusiveness and discuss how our model relates to more general concepts of inclusiveness of institutions, as framed by Acemoglu and Robinson, or the nature of “access orders,” as introduced by North, Wallis, and Weingast.     

A Survey of Agricultural Household Models: Recent Findings and Policy Implications

Semicommercial farms that produce multiple crops make up a largepart of the agricultural sector in developing economies. Thesefarms or agricultural households combine two fundamental unitsof microeconomic analysis: the household and the firm. Traditionaleconomic theory has dealt with these units separately. But indeveloping economies in which peasant farms dominate, theirinterdependence is of crucial importance. Researchers at theFood Research Institute, Stanford University, and at the WorldBank have developed models of agricultural households that combineproducer and consumer behavior in a theoretically consistentfashion. Recent empirical applications of these models haveextended them and expanded the range of policy issues whichcan be investigated using this general framework. This article reports the results of empirical applications ofthis model in India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea,Malaysia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Taiwan, and Thailand.It provides a comparative analysis of the policy implicationsof the approach for such matters as the welfare of farm households,the size of marketed surplus, the demand for nonagriculturalgoods and services, and for hired labor, and the availabilityof budget revenues and foreign exchange.     

Machine Learning and Expert Judgement: Analyzing Emerging Topics in Accounting and Finance Research in the Asia–Pacific

In this paper, we focus on the question to what extent machine learning (ML) tools can be used to support systematic literature reviews. We apply a ML approach for topic detection to analyze emerging topics in the literature—our context is accounting and finance research in the Asia–Pacific region. To evaluate the robustness of the approach, we compare findings from the automated ML approach with the results from a manual analysis of the literature. The automated approach uses a keyword algorithm detection mechanism whereby the manual analysis uses common techniques for qualitative data analysis, that is, triangulation between researchers (expert judgement). From our paper, we conclude that both methods have strengths and weaknesses. The automated analysis works well for large corpora of text and provides a very standardized and non-biased way of analyzing the literature. However, the human researcher is potentially better equipped to evaluate current issues and future trends in the literature. Overall, the best results might be achieved when a variety of tools are used together.     

Reexamining momentum profits: Underreaction or overreaction to firm-specific information?

We design a new measure and find that the predictability of past returns on future returns increases as stocks respond with delay to firm-specific information. Our results suggest that momentum is caused by both investors’ underreaction and overreaction to information. However, underreaction to information seems to be the primary cause, particularly during the more recent period. Our findings are robust for recent explanations of momentum profits and alternative methods for computing our measure. We also find that stocks respond with delay to firm-specific information, partly due to certain firm characteristics, and partly because they escape investor attention due to their low visibility. Our paper extends and refines Jegadeesh and Titman’s (J Financ 56(2):699–720, 2001) finding that momentum profits are consistent with behavioral models’ predictions regarding investors’ overreaction.     

Multinational capital structure and financial flexibility

We address multinational capital structure decisions when firms have varying degrees of financial flexibility for shifting income and/or tax shields between subsidiaries. We find: (1) firms can use leverage to dramatically reduce negative valuation effects from operating in a high-tax country; (2) financial flexibility is a key determinant of optimal capital structure, acting as both a substitute and a complement for leverage; (3) multinational firms derive a synergistic effect from financial flexibility, which can enhance their value beyond that for a single-country firm from a low-tax jurisdiction; and (4) optimal capital structure typically differs substantially across subsidiaries, with each having positions in multiple currencies.