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No. 350 |
January 2008 |
Vol LXXXVIII |
ISSN 0019-5170 |
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Contents
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Health Care Provisions in Punjab-Pakistan
(A Cost Analysis Approach)
Mazhar-ul-Haq Baluch*
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Saima Shahid**
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Punjab is almost the largest province of Pakistan having 84.56 million population with 31:69 urban and rural ratio (Projected for 2004). Health department delivers health care facilities through tertiary level network. There is an imbalance between urban and rural area in term of availability and utilization of health care facilities. Rising health care costs can be termed as one of the major health care problems. It reflects the increasing quantities and qualities of health care services supplied and demanded. The ensuing study was conducted to assess the status of health care provisions. Time series as well as cross sectional data for the year 2003-04 was used in the study. Despite increase in population, there observed decrease in population per professional of each category, which reflected increase in accessibility to health professionals overtime. Improvement was observed in general in all the health related indicators such as death rate, birth rate, infant mortality and life expectancy overtime. Fluctuations emerged in patient treated overtime, which could be attributed to relative less or more ailment during the considered period of the study. A major proportion of treated patient belonged to outdoor patients. According to the results of the Econometric model on the basis of cost per inpatient days there existed short nun product specification diseconomies of scale. However, rays economies exist there with elasticity greater than unity. In the long run the estimates exhibited economies of scale implying mild rays economies of scale. On the basis of total budget the estimates reflected economies of scale in short run with negative elsticity, while in the long run mild ray economies of scale emerged. This leads underutilization of fixed resources on cost per inpatient day. So, there is a need to monitor and evaluate the health care network.
* Senior Research Fellow.
** Associate Research Fellow, Lahore School of Economics, Main Campus,
Burki Road, Lahore.
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Technical Bias in Indian Textile Industry
I. R. S. Sarma*
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V. K. Reddy**
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The textile industry occupies a unique place in the Indian economy. As WTO countries phase out their import quotas on textiles and apparel the Indian Textile industry will face increasingly intense competition in markets both at home and abroad. To meet the challenges, the industry should identify growth areas to improve production and productivity levels. This paper presents the marginal productivities and technical bias in Textile and Textile Products industries for all India and 14 major states for the period 1979-1980 to 2000-2001 using translog production function approach. The results reveal that there is state-wise variation in the nature of technical bias for both industries. In textiles industry most of the states which have experienced technical bias, are following labour saving and energy using character. Where as in the case of Textile Products most of the states are following energy saving and material using technique.
* Faculty Associate, ICFAI Business School, ICFAI University, Nagarjuna Hills,
Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Mail-id: irssarma@gmail.com
** Professor of Econometrics, Department of Econometrics, S. V. University, Tirupati,
Andhra Pradesh. Mail-id : vkreddy52@yahoo.co.in
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Rural Poverty in India : The Trends and Determinants
Rudra Prakash Pradhan*
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The article attempts to examine the trends and determinants of rural poverty in the Indian economy. Using NSS data, paper finds that rural poverty has been substantially declining in India but varies with respect to time periods and across its states/regions. Following an empirical investigation for the period 1987-88 to 1999-2000, it finds that India's rural poverty is significantly influenced by per capita development expenditure, per capita GDP, agricultural GDP, CPIAL, real agricultural wage and irrigation. While CPIAL exert a positive causal influence on rural poverty, all others are negatively influenced the same. It finally suggests that boosting development expenditure is the most appropriate solution to alleviate rural poverty in the Indian economy.
* Economics & Finance Group, Faculty Div.-I, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, (BITS), Pilani, Rajasthan, 333031, India
E-mail : pradhanrp@yahoo.com & rudrap@bits-pilani.ac.in
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Structural Adjustment Programme and Real Wage in Pakistan's Manufacturing Industries
Zafar Mahmood*
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In order to alleviate chronic fiscal and balance of payments problems, since 1988 Pakistan has been implementing structural adjustment programmes (SAP) with the assistance of international donor agencies led by the International Monetary Fund. The SAPs generally ignored the sectoral issues but have had economy-wide implications. In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyze the determinants of real wage trends in the manufacturing industries of Pakistan for the pre-SAP and SAP periods. Using a simple but intuitively robust technique, the paper finds that as compared to the pre-SAP period the earlier period of the SAP registered a fall in the growth rate of real wages. This decline can be attributed to a relatively smaller appreciation of the domestic exchange rate, as the producer price level was higher than the consumer price level, and a rise in the growth rate of employment. On the other hand, strong domestic appreciation of exchange rate along with a sharp rise in the growth of employment contributed to a negative growth in real wages in the later SAP years, a period when even a higher growth in output could not offset the negative growth in real wages. The paper offers policy recommendations to remedy this situation.
* Dr. Zafar Mahmood, Research Scientist, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research.
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Monetary Policy and Industrial Outputs in Nigeria: The Relevance of Rational Expectation Hypothesisaz
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Effects of Lending Policies of Formal and Informal Micro Finance Institutions on Access to Agricultural Credit in Nigeria
Godwin Odo Onogwu
and
Chukwuemeka John Arene*
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The study attempts to evaluate the lending policies of formal and informal micro finance institutions in Enugu State of Nigeria with emphasis on credit demand and access among farmer clients.
The results show that greater percentage of the farmers source their loans through informal means, though credit volume from formal was higher. The regression analysis results show that age of farmers, annual income, family size, asset, and initial capital are significantly related to credit demand, but level of education account for less. The binary logistic analysis results show that chances of the farmers gaining access to credit via formal or informal micro finance institutions will increase when such policy variables as enterprise worth, and repayment rate increase, while their chances of gaining access to credit via formal or informal means will increase when the policy variable, interest rate, decreases.
The classification performance of the logit function is sufficiently high to alleviate the fears associated with misclassification errors.
* Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nigeria, Nsukka
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Low Public Investment and Declining Growth in a Regional Economy in India A Case of Uttar Pradesh
Manoj Kumar Agarwal*
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Role of public investment in a developing economy becomes crucial particularly in the initial phases of economic development. Keeping this view into consideration, we can analyze pattern of public investment and growth pattern in a backward regional economy of Uttar Pradesh when the national economy of India is growing at rapid and accelerated pace. This paper attempts to analyze growth pattern in the economy of Uttar Pradesh and pattern of investment mainly in the public sector. It is also attempted to find out causes of poor public investment because it has its effect on the private sector investment as well while boosting overall prospects of the economy.
* Reader, Department of Economics, University of Lucknow, Lucknow 226007 (India)
E- mail : mkagarwal lu@rediffmail.com |
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Dynamics of the Transfer of Public Scientific R & D to Private Firms
T. V. S. Ramamohan Rao*
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The present study acknowledges three features of the developments in biotechnology, viz., fragmentary knowledge developments that need to be coordinated to obtain a product of utility and commercial value, the high costs, and the risks involved. The necessity for the transfer of informal knowledges as well as genetic materials and laboratory tools will also be kept in perspective in developing efficient R & D choices. More pertinently, the study examines the role of public policy with respect to each of the above characteristics at various stages of development. The analysis is helpful in delimiting the roles of the public and private organizations though the precise characterization of an efficient mix is as yet elusive.
* Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur |
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Decomposition of Total Factor Productivity Growth in Nonparametric Framework A Reconsideration
Biresh K. Sahoo*
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An attempt is first made in this paper to illustrate in nonparametric framework the decomposition of total factor productivity growth (TFPG) into technical change and efficiency change. Fare et. al. (1994) measure TFPG by taking geometric mean of two Malmquist indexes proposed by Caves et. al. (1982), assuming that these two indexes are very different from each other. We have, however, shown that these two indexes are, in fact, the one and same for the case of constant returns to scale (CRS) technology involving single input and single output. In case of multi-input and output CRS technology, the productivity estimates of these two indexes are broadly similar. Our empirical results based on Indian Sunrise industries data indicate that the transition period of economic liberalization experiences high productivity decay despite high technical progress, suggesting bold policy decisions required by Government to bring changes in institutional and environmental climate to increase productivity by reducing inefficiency for the time to come.
* Associate Professor, Amrita School of Business, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, (Deemed University) Ettimadai Post, Coimbatore 641 105, India,
E-mail : biresh@ettimadai.amrita.edu biresh 00@yakoo.com |
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