Effect of public programs on family size,child education and health

"A bulk of public resources in developing countries is devoted to the subvention of population control and health investments. The effects of these programs have been evaluated in this study with household and community data from Bangladesh. The results suggest that subsidy on family planning and secondary school would be most effective in the achievement of harmonious goals of reducing fertility and mortality and fostering investments in child education."     

Preliminary test estimators of the parameters of simple linear model with measurement error

In this paper, we discuss the properties of preliminary test estimators (PTE) of the parameters of simple linear model with measurement error (ME model) when the slope of the linear model is suspected to be zero. Expressions of the bias, MSE and efficiencies are obtained under conditional as well as unconditional situations with known reliability coefficient. Conditional model results are compared to the standard model without measurement error. We also provide the unconditional model analysis in finite samples. Asymptotic theory under local alternatives is developed when the variance of measurement error or the ratio of the variance of the model error relative to the variance of the measurement error is known. Asymptotic expressions of bias and MSE of the estimators along with their efficiencies are obtained. In every case, it is shown that the measurement error tend to increase the variability of the estimators compared to the estimators without measurement error. Graphs and tables are provided to see these results and to determine optimum level of significance for minimum guaranteed efficiency. Received October 2001 RID="*" ID="*"  A. K. Md. E. Saleh is a Distinguished Research Professor and H. M. Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Mathematics and Statistics, Carleton University, Ottawa. Acknowledgment. The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive suggestion of the referees to improve the paper. The research is supported by NSERC grant A3088.     

Does remittance fuel labour productivity in Bangladesh? The application of an asymmetric non-linear ARDL approach

Bangladesh, a labour-abundant country, is finally learning to reap gains from her labour abundance. The historical under-optimized capital–labour ratio of Bangladesh is slowly moving towards its optimum as the migration of its labour force and consequent inflow of remittance strategically converts its abundant labour into capital. Though the fear that remittance as an alternative source of earning may result in Dutch disease for existing family members; annual data for 1982–2013 and through applying standard testing methodologies, our empirical findings suggest that such a fear is not valid since remittance flow significantly improves domestic labour productivity in Bangladesh in the long run.     

Minimising emergency response time of ambulances through pre-positioning in Dhaka city,Bangladesh

This study conducted a large-scale survey in Dhaka, Bangladesh; the survey involved 95 major hospitals, more than 3000 emergency room patients, and 2 of the largest ambulance operators. Currently, most ambulances are parked within the vicinity of hospitals and are either dispatched or fetched by the acquaintances of the patient on demand, resulting in lengthy round trips. Reducing the response time of ambulances would certainly improve the emergency service, and pre-positioning of the ambulances could be a solution to reducing the response time. This study used two approaches to address the problem. First, the location-allocation problem was solved to find the optimal number of ambulance locations by maximising the demand coverage. Second, separate location-allocation for the peak and off-peaks, using K-means clustering, was applied to systematically optimise the ambulance positioning in small clusters near demand points. These approaches could substantially improve the existing emergency response time. Distributing ambulances near demand points yielded greater improvements in response time than when the ambulances are stationed near hospitals.     

The Effect of Corporate Governance on Firm Stock Volatility in Asia

The authors examine whether firm corporate governance (CG) contributes to lower stock-return volatility. Using the panel data of 1,252 public listed firms in Asia across 11 countries for 15 years, the authors document international evidence that CG has a stabilizing effect on firm stock-return volatility. The authors further examine whether increasing information efficiency, reducing foreign exposure, and a lower cost of capital contribute to the stabilizing effect of firm CG on stock-return volatility. The result implies that better CG will only reduce stock-return volatility for firms that have less foreign exposure.     

Market Risk Disclosures and Investment Efficiency: International Evidence from the Gulf Cooperation Council Financial Firms

This study examines the association between market risk disclosures (MRDs) and the investment efficiency of financial firms from six emerging markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Based on a sample of 553 firm‐year observations over the 2007–2011 period, we find that MRDs are significantly and negatively associated with both under‐investment and over‐investment and that this association is more pronounced for larger firms. We also find that the association between MRDs and under‐investment is moderated during periods of economic distress such as the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and that the association between MRDs and over‐investment is magnified during periods of reduced financial distress. Our results are consistent with the idea that MRDs reduce information asymmetry, which ultimately improves investment efficiency. We contribute to the literature in an emerging market context by providing empirical evidence on the association between MRDs and investment efficiency across six emerging GCC capital markets. This study also fills a gap in the literature by providing evidence on the factors affecting the investment efficiency of financial firms.     

Farmers' Preference for Farming: Evidence From a Nationally Representative Farm Survey in India

Using data from a nationally representative farm survey in India, we have analyzed Indian farmers' stated preference for farming as a profession. Findings show that more than 40% of farmers dislike farming as a profession because of low profits, high risk, and lack of social status, yet they continue with it owing to a lack of opportunities outside agriculture. Farmers who express a preference for moving out of agriculture are mostly those with small landholdings, poor irrigation facilities, fewer productive assets including livestock, and follow a cereal‐centric cropping pattern. They also have relatively lower access to credit, insurance, and information, and are weakly integrated with social networks such as self‐help groups and farmers' organizations. Importantly, the disinclination for farming, conditional on other covariates, is not significantly differentiated by caste, an important indicator of social status in rural India. Yet, within a caste group, the dislike for farming moderates with larger landholdings.     

Participation index: a measure to identify rural transport disadvantage?

This paper develops a composite participation index (PI) to identify patterns of transport disadvantage in space and time. It is operationalised using 157 weekly activity-travel diaries data collected from three case study areas in rural Northern Ireland. A review of activity space and travel behaviour research found that six dimensional indicators of activity spaces were typically used including the number of unique locations visited, distance travelled, area of activity spaces, frequency of activity participation, types of activity participated in, and duration of participation in order to identify transport disadvantage. A combined measure using six individual indices were developed based on the six dimensional indicators of activity spaces, by taking into account the relativity of the measures for weekdays, weekends, and for a week. Factor analyses were conducted to derive weights of these indices to form the PI measure. Multivariate analysis using general linear models of the different indicators/indices identified new patterns of transport disadvantage. The research found that: indicator based measures and index based measures are complement each other; interactions between different factors generated new patterns of transport disadvantage; and that these patterns vary in space and time. The analysis also indicates that the transport needs of different disadvantaged groups are varied.     

How well do conservation auctions perform in achieving landscape‐level outcomes? A comparison of auction formats and bid selection criteria

This paper studies the performance of auction design features regarding pricing mechanisms and bid selection criteria for securing wildlife zones across different holdings. We compare two pricing mechanisms: a discriminatory‐price auction and a uniform‐price ascending auction, and four bid selection criteria on the basis of: total bid, bid‐per‐value ratio, bid‐per‐area ratio and a mixed criterion where bids are formed on the basis of cost but they are selected based on the bid‐per‐value ratio. We develop a best‐response group‐bidding model for a discriminatory‐price auction where bidders form optimal group bids for individual wildlife zones. In the uniform‐price ascending auction, individual landholders respond to prices, which are successively raised by the auctioneer and whenever all the landholders from a single zone agree to participate (i.e. the first zone is formed), the auction stops. Based on numerical simulations using a bio‐economic model of malleefowl conservation, we observe that the discriminatory‐price auction is more cost‐effective than the uniform‐price ascending auction. However, the budgetary cost‐effectiveness of a discriminatory‐price auction is sensitive to bidder uncertainty about the number of competing bidder groups and the highest cost of establishing a wildlife zone among these groups. In terms of bid selection, the mixed bid selection criterion performs best. We discuss the policy implications of these findings.