‘Mainline’ telecommunications infrastructure, levels of development and economic growth: Evidence from a panel of developing countries

This paper assesses the growth impact of telecommunications infrastructure investment in developing countries by subjecting country-specific data on mainline tele-density and per capita growth to a Granger causality test within a panel cointegration framework. The results suggest that growth effects vary widely across country groupings reflecting different levels of development. Mainline tele-density and per capita growth strongly reinforce each other for countries that are relatively less developed. The reinforcement effect is even stronger for emerging countries that can be identified by their higher than average growth rates. In contrast, there is, at best, weak evidence of bi-directional causal links between the two variables for countries that are relatively more developed. These differences in the mainline tele-density and per capita growth relationships suggest that investment in telecommunications infrastructure, with its potential to generate high growth return, may serve as the critical tool for driving the growth and development process forward in the less developed countries.     

Bundling and the Reduction of the Winner's Curse

The paper studies the effects of bundling on the bidding strategies and seller revenues in auctions when the bidders have common values for the objects. Bundling of objects before the auction reduces the problem of the winner's curse, and the bidders bid more aggressively. This does not mean that a bundled auction is always better for the seller's revenue. Indeed, there is another effect that makes the bundled auction preferable (from the seller's standpoint) if and only if the number of bidders is small. While this is the only effect present in an independent-private-values model, it does not vanish when bidders have pure common values for the objects. The paper concludes that a bundled auction is unambiguously better for the seller than separate auctions when the number of bidders is small.     

Bilateral trade between India and Bangladesh: A general equilibrium approach

India and Bangladesh have pursued policies of trade liberalization since the early 1990s. However, owing to the differential speeds of opening up, Bangladesh's bilateral trade deficit with India widened substantially over the years. This aggravated the economic and the political tensions between the economies. It has been held that promotion of free trade between the two economies may enhance the trade and hence economic cooperation between them. Against this backdrop the present paper proposes a theoretical framework that provides a general equilibrium determination of the commodity pattern of trade and hence locates the comparative advantages of the economies. The empirical implementation of the model considers trade in 25 sectors comparable in the input–output tables of the economies. The study isolates the gains from free trade accruing to either economy. The paper also explores the pattern of bilateral trade when each economy produces goods by utilizing their own as well as the other country's technology. The gains from this trading arrangement are also isolated.     

Accounting decoupled: A case study of accounting regime change in a Malaysian company

Using a case study of accounting regime change in a Malaysian company, this paper analyses how an accounting regime was changed to overcome an instance of decoupling that management of the case company perceived to be problematic and, despite certain technological and managerial improvements, why the accounting regime yet remained decoupled from the control of core operations. Through an eclectic use of ANT, neo-institutionalism and political economy, it demonstrates that accounting remains decoupled from operational processes because of the particular manner in which accounting is constructed and enabled; the ostensive characteristics of accounting objects around which performativity of accounting is defined; and the organisational context, which involves certain ‘political imperfections’ that cannot be narrated within organisational apparatus of modernity. Accounting, being an apparatus of modernity, finds it difficult to codify such ‘imperfections’ and to offer an operational doctrine to govern the real business processes that are embedded within these ‘imperfections’. Hence, it remains decoupled from core operational activities but performs an important role of insulating ‘political imperfections’ with which business operates.     

Low level equilibrium trap,unemployment, efficiency of education system,child labour and human capital formation

This paper builds an overlapping generations household economy model to examine the impact of adult unemployment on the human capital formation of a child and on child labour, as viewed through the lens of the adult’s expectations of future employability. The model indicates that the higher the adult unemployment rate in the skilled sector, the lesser is the time allocated by an unskilled adult towards schooling of her child. We also find that an increase in the unskilled adult’s wage may or may not decrease child labour in the presence of unemployment. The model predicts that an increase in child wage increases schooling and human capital growth rate only if the adults in the unskilled sector earn less than subsistence consumption expenditure. As the responsiveness of skilled wage to human capital increases, schooling and human capital growth rates increase. The model dynamics bring out the importance of education efficiency and parental human capital in human capital formation of the child. In the case of an inefficient education system, generations will be trapped into low level equilibrium. Only in the presence of an efficient education system, steady growth of human capital is possible. Suitable policies that may be framed to escape the child labour trap are discussed as well.     

Bundling decisions for selling multiple objects

Summary. Auctioneers often face the decision of whether to bundle two or more different objects before selling them. Under a Vickrey auction (or any other revenue equivalent auction form) there is a unique critical number for each pair of objects such that when the number of bidders is fewer than that critical number the seller strictly prefers a bundled sale and when there are more bidders the seller prefers unbundled sales. This property holds even when the valuations for the objects are correlated for a given bidder. The results have been proved using a mathematical technique of quantiles that can be extremely useful for similar analysis. Received: November 5, 1996; revised version: January 21, 1998     

CAPM and the changing distribution of historical returns

Three statistical tests reject the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) assumption of a constant distribution of returns over time, for three different aggregate stock indices over various holding periods since 1950. These findings further undermine the reliability of CAPM applied to historical data for choosing optimal portfolio allocations.     

Cashlessness in India: Vision,policy and practices

Over the past few years, an increasing convergence can be observed between international and Indian initiatives towards cashlessness, often involving a broad range of actors and influences. Despite this convergence, it is also clear that the conceptualization and implementation, or goals and outcomes of cashlessness can vary considerably, which indicates the need for a closer look at the Indian case. In this introductory note to the special issue on cashlessness in India, we outline the variety of institutions, stakeholders (regulatory, financial and technological actors), technologies and policies involved. As we have observed, digital payments and financial inclusion are two significant planks of cashlessness in India. Perhaps as a result, digital payments have been intentionally defined in a broad manner in India – ranging from anti-cash to less-cash and now contactless payments in the aftermath of Covid-19. Considering the variety of legal, economic, social and technological concerns involved, this special issue adopts 2 complementary foci to study cashlessness in India: technological visions and the systems undergirding it, and practices of end users. The special issue includes four papers. The first paper argues that the Digital India programme may lead to the commercialization of bias. The second paper historicizes the Indian demonetization of 2016 and examines its stated and unstated goals. The next paper provides a conceptual model on technology adoption in the context of digital payments. The final paper argues that users strategically switch between multiple payments media based on the context in which the transaction is taking place.