Passing the “Torches of Freedom”: Smoking Behaviors of Women in Nepal

Globally, men constitute a larger percentage of smokers than women, but the rate of women smokers is growing. Smoking is a feminist issue: there are unique consequences for women's health, well-being, and agency. Recently passed anti-smoking legislation in Nepal, which has the highest rate of women smokers in South Asia, omits gender-conscious recommendations, potentially diminishing the impact of the legislation on women's lives. Relying on the 2001, 2006, and 2011 waves of the Nepal Demographic and Health Survey, this paper expands the dialogue around women's smoking and places it at the forefront of research on women's health issues. The results indicate that for women in Nepal, formal education and visiting a health facility mitigate smoking behaviors, whereas being employed and living in certain regions promotes smoking behaviors. The aim is for this and the ensuing inquiries to change government anti-smoking legislation in order to improve women's health.     

Testing for the uncovered interest parity condition in a small open economy: A state space modelling approach

Do interest rate differentials smoothly mirror the changes in the exchange rate between a small open economy and a large emerging market economy? The literature provides conflicting views on the validity of the uncovered interest parity condition (UIP), including its size and factors influencing the risk premium. We examine the validity of the UIP condition between Nepal and India using time-series data covering the period 1989 – 2019. A state space modelling approach based on the Kalman filter analysis is applied to simulate the risk premium. We find that the UIP condition does not hold for the Nepalese Rupee. A time-varying persistent negative risk premium that dominantly explains interest rate differentials is, instead, found. These findings imply that Nepalese residents prefer to hold foreign assets and continually expect future devaluations of the domestic currency. These present obstacles to developing domestic financial markets and the implementation of a market oriented monetary policy.     

Introduction - Children and Family Policy: a Feminist Issue

Policy makers increasingly rely on theories of social capital to fashion development interventions that mobilize local social networks in the alleviation of poverty. The potential of such theory lies in its recognition of the social dimensions of economic growth. This recognition has inspired some innovative approaches to development, such as the now-popular microfinance model. In assessing the implications of these recent developments for feminist objectives of social transformation, this paper evaluates prevailing ideas about social capital (rooted in rational choice theory) against the grain of three alternative approaches: Marxian social capital theories ( À la Pierre Bourdieu), neo-Foucauldian governmentality studies, and my feminist ethnographic research on the social embeddedness of economic practice in a merchant community of Nepal. The paper concludes by bringing these critical insights to bear on possibilities for designing microfinance programs - and practicing a kind of development more generally - that could engage women's solidarity to challenge dominant gender ideologies.     

Imagining the Nepali ‘nation’ through tourism

Tourism is considered to present a contrived and inauthentic version of a nation and that there is a big gap between touristic image and the social reality of the nation. By contrast, some scholars have argued that tourism can be an important tool to articulate nationhood and nationalism as it represents an authentic national culture. This paper looks into the representation of the Nepali nation in tourism and sees how fairly it represents ‘national imagery’ and culture. Data collected through unobtrusive methods and observations show that tourism is presenting a picture of Nepal that is largely partial and unrepresentative of its composite character. The imagery of Nepal in tourism is full of references to Himalayan heritage and there is a serious under-representation of the region of Terai and its people. The portrayal of Nepal in the two sources used reflects the representations of some kinds of ‘conservative nationalism’ in Nepal. This study also stresses that such (under)representations prevents tourism from playing a meaningful role in bringing in more ‘sub-national’ identities into the composite imagery of Nepal and solidifying and expressing Nepali national identity and nationalism.     

An economic reappraisal of the Melamchi water supply project - Kathmandu,Nepal

This paper examines whether the benefits of the Melamchi water supply project in Nepal are likely to exceed its costs, assuming that high-quality municipal water services can be delivered to households and firms in the urbanized part of the Kathmandu Valley. Monte Carlo simulations are used to explore the sensitivity of the net present value and economic internal rate of return calculations to a wide range of assumptions and input parameters. We find that extreme assumptions are not required to generate large differences in economic feasibility; quite plausible differences in the values of some key parameters can lead to large differences in the economic attractiveness of the project. The results reveal that the three most important influences on net present value and economic internal rate of return are: (i) the discount rate and discounting procedure; (ii) the magnitude of monthly benefits for households connected to the new water system; and (iii) the annual growth rate in monthly benefits of connected households after the project comes on line. Our contribution lies in illustrating, with an actual case study in a developing country, the degree to which cost-benefit calculations of large infrastructure projects are influenced by key economic modeling assumptions and input parameters.JEL Classification: H42, H43, H54, Q25, Q56 Correspondence to: Dale WhittingtonWe would especially like to thank Keiichi Tamaki (ADB) and Ian Hill (Acres International) for their guidance and assistance with this project. We would also like to thank the following individuals for their help during our mission to Kathmandu in May, 2003: Richard W. A. Vokes, Kathie M. Julian, Raj Kumar Malla, Madan Shankar Shrestha, Suman Prasad Sharma and Noor Kumar Tamrakar.     

Adoption of improved maize varieties in the hills of Nepal

Maize (Zea mays L.) is the most important cereal crop in the hills of Nepal, where the grain is used for human consumption and the stover for animal fodder. Maize farms are small, and population pressure necessitates the intensification of existing farming systems. Maize research directed at developing technologies for maize production began in Nepal in 1965. In 2000, a survey was carried out in two districts to determine the current level of adoption of improved maize production practices. In each of these districts, remote and accessible village development committees (VDCs) were surveyed. Questionnaires were administered to 54 randomly selected households in each VDC. A Tobit analysis was used to determine socio‐economic, physical and technology factors that influence the use of improved varieties by farmers. All households use composted farmyard manure, and in the more accessible areas, urea as part of their soil fertility management strategy. Use of improved varieties was less than 60% for all VDCs and only 15% in the most remote VDC. In three of the four VDCs, adoption of improved varieties primarily occurred during the past 5 years. Based on a Tobit analysis, Khet land area, ethnic group, years of fertiliser use, off‐farm income, and contact with extension significantly and positively affected adoption of improved varieties. Farmers in VDCs in central Nepal reported lack of seed to be the major constraint to the adoption of improved varieties, while lack of knowledge of new varieties was the major constraint for farmers in the western VDCs. The results from this survey suggest that the strategy for improving the adoption of new varieties will differ depending on infrastructure and the socio‐economic conditions of the farmers in a given area.     

Custom‐hired tractor services and returns to scale in smallholder agriculture: a production function approach

Historically, agricultural transformation has often accompanied the increase in the returns to scale. Little direct evidence exists, however, on what actually causes such increase, despite the knowledge of many factors that are associated with this increase. We fill this knowledge gap by testing whether hiring in tractor services has raised returns to scale in agriculture at the household level in Nepal Terai that has undergone rapid growth in the tractor use through custom‐hiring services. Using Switching Regression and Inverse‐Probability‐Weighted Generalized Method of Moments, we address two sources of endogeneity involved with the estimation of returns to scale; (1) farmers’ self‐selection on whether to hire in tractor services and (2) use of inputs in the production function. For both Cobb‐Douglas and Translog production function specifications, we find that hiring in tractor services significantly increased the returns to scale in agricultural production by about 0.2 ～ 0.3 among farm households not owning tractors, for which suitable control groups are found. Findings are robust under various alternative specifications.     

Health and hunger: nutrient response to income depending on caloric availability in Nepal

Using data from NLSS III, we estimate nutrient‐income elasticities for macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals. We further allow for differential nutrient demand response to income depending on where a household is in the caloric availability distribution. We find that some nutrients are income inelastic indicating that they are necessity goods while others are relatively income elastic. We further test and reject equivalent nutrient‐income elasticities across the caloric availability distribution. Households in the lowest calorie quintile have highly income elastic nutrient demand leaving them vulnerable to income fluctuations. Moreover, as households meet their first‐order caloric needs, they substitute away from cheap calorie‐dense staples toward more expensive nutrient‐dense foods. Finally, for most nutrients, households in the highest calorie quintile exhibit more elastic nutrient demand, similar to households in the lowest quintile. Our results suggest that policies aimed at improving income will likely also improve household nutrient availability, particularly for the most calorie poor households. They further suggest that policies aimed at protecting poor households from negative income shocks will also likely yield nutritional benefits.     

Tourism and the geopolitics of Buddhist heritage in Nepal

This study explores the intricacies of geopolitical imagination at a heritage attraction in Nepal, when a Chinese NGO proposed an investment project to develop it as tourism hub. It seeks to investigate the discourses and reasons deployed by Nepali tourism stakeholders in explaining the Chinese plan. The study applies qualitative methodology and the primary data which were collected through 20 semi-structured interviews. The study shows that in articulating the project aim, the agency of national actors is shaped by the regional power struggle and a ‘nationalist’ sentiment originated from perceived threat to the heritage in question. The finding is useful in understanding the complexities of geopolitical constraints that can influence tourism development projects.