Special Centennial Issue

No. 399

April 2020

Vol. C

ISSN: 0019-5170

Contents
 
 

Anthropometric Measurements for Children in Nuclear and Joint Families


Ravi Sundaram1
Vishavdeep Sharma2
Aakriti Saraswat3


 

Joint household structures in which several generations live together. This is a developing countries specific phenomenon. Such household may confer benefit on the family members through the household public goods. Head of the household exercise greater control over the public good. Generally the oldest-active-male family member is the head of the household. This paper is an attempt to compare anthropometric outcomes of the children living in joint family against those children living in nuclear family. We must keep in mind that there is no standard definition for joint and nuclear family. The way they are defined are context specific and so all definitions have drawbacks if they are viewed in general. So, this paper defined nuclear and joint family for the analysis part particularly. The result is in the favour of the joint family i.e. the health indicators of the children are better in the joint family.

Key Words: Joint Family, Nuclear Family, Anthropometric Outcomes, Health Indicators, BMI, Child Development.

  1. Economics and Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi 110016 E-mail - ravisundaram.ssr@gmail.com
  2. Research Scholar, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi 110067. E-mail - vishavdeeps95@gmail.com
  3. Academic Associate, Economics and Social Sciences, IIM, Bangalore 560076. E-mail - aakritisaraswat1994@gmail.com
 
 

Cement Industry at a Flourishing Point: A Comparative Analysis Between Selected Cement Companies of Bangladesh

Tanbir Ahmad Chowdhury1


 

The main objective of this paper is to analyze and compare the performance of cement industry in the context of Bangladesh. Six out of seven cement companies have been selected from Dhaka Stock Exchange in order to conduct the performance analysis based on a panel data. The study conducted various statistical measures like growth percentage, trend equation, and square of correlation coefficient over the span of five years. Results show that production, total sales, foreign sales, total assets, net income of selected cement companies achieve a stable growth pattern during the period of 2010-2018. Trend equation and square of correlation coefficient (r2) have been tested for different activities of cement companies where only total assets have a positive trend equation. The r2 of production, total assets, and total sales is more than 0.5 which indicates the bright prospect of cement industries in Bangladesh.

Key Words: Cement company, sales, production, Bangladesh.

  1. Professor, Department of Business Administration and Director, Executive Development Center (EDC), East West University, Dhaka, Bangladesh Email: tanbir@ewubd.edu, tanbirchowdhury2014@gmail.com
 
 

Role of Income Generating Programmes of Selected NGO's Creating Entrepreneurs in Rural Bangladesh: An Empirical Analysis

Nawazeesh Muhammad Ali 1


 

Income-generating programmes (IGPs) facilitate beneficiaries to obtain skills and allow them to engage in activities that generate income through creating entrepreneurs. NGOs take the task of arranging the benefits of deprived and needy people of the society by giving them loans to engage in their own entrepreneurial activities to create earnings and take part in the production process. Sustainable development goal-8 refers to the promotion of inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all. Research questions are given below: Whether beneficiaries can earn more after joiningat the income generating programme rather than before? Whether IGPs help to fulfill SDG-8's to attain decent work for the beneficiaries? How IGPs deliver benefits to those people who are below the poverty line? For analyzing the role of income generating programmes of selected NGOs's operating in rural Bangladesh, the study applied a deductive approach. The study provided the questionnaires to five NGOs who have been working with IGPactivities and obtained 53 responses from their beneficiaries. The study observed that: beneficiaries are getting more earnings from the income generating programmes after joining; IGPs helped to fulfill the SDG-8 for the beneficiaries of the selected NGOs who were closely associated; IGPs delivered to those people who are below the poverty line as theorized. NGOs are arranging training for the beneficiaries of theIGPs which are quite necessary. The shadow economy is working in the rural areas of the country where economic activities are involved in the informal labour market. Therefore, the government cannot take taxes which need tobe paid .However, after coming out of the vicious circle of poverty line through IGPs these taxes should have been paid by the entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the study wants to provide following recommendations: decentralized development policies with the main focus on the rural areas which require implementation and participation of the rural poor .Income Generating Programmes (IGPs) need to be encouraged as they helped to create fresh entrepreneurs in the informal sector and assisted for empowerment of the rural people. A wider survey and examination may yield more information on the feasibility of these IGPs.

Key Words: Income generating Programmes, Entrepreneurship, Analysis of Poverty, Informal labour market, Training, Shadow Economy


JEL Classification Code: I32, J46, O17, L26, M53

  1. Research associate at Center for Breakthrough thinking in Bangladesh, Dhaka Email:nawazeeshmali@gmail.com
 
 

Medical Robots and Blockchain Technology Needs in the Health Sector of Bangladesh: An Empirical Analysis

Muhammad Mahboob Ali 1  

Medical sector of Bangladesh is a vulnerable situation. From different studies it was observed that due to lack of medical facilities, patients are going abroad but after all over the world COVID19 created a panic for the patients who used to go abroad as moving abroad is almost closed. Now at the time of COVID19, starting from the doctors to other health personnel are facing lot of troubles to give support services not only COVID19 effected or suspected patients but also other patients like cardiology, cancer, diabetic even born of new baby. As such the study was undertaken how medical robots and Blockchain technology will help to improve healthcare facilities of Bangladesh. Time period of the study is 15 March 2020 to 30th June, 2020 and data were collected through maintaining social distance under pandemic situation. The study did interview by email, cell phone, whatsapp based on a closed end questionnaire. Total numbers of 112 respondents and as the study intends to collect gender balances out of them 56 respondents are men and 56 respondents are women whether there is any sort of non random association between categories of variable by men and women. Fisher exact test statistic was addressed. he study suggested that though massive investment will be needed but in the long run medical robots and blockchain technology will helpful for the patients of the country as they can get better health care management system. Welfare of the health of the citizens of the country is being related to asy availability of the health related services for which organizational development in the health care management is being required as suggested by the author. Private medical colleges and hospitals need to ethically behave with patient and patient parties as recommended by the author.

Key Words: Health and Economic Development; Blockchain technology; health care facilitates; medical robots; prevent fraudulent activities; Organizational development of the health related organizations; patient services.

JEL Classification Code: 115

  1. The author is Professor and expert in the field of Macro and Financial Economics, Entrepreneurial Management and ICT, Dhaka School of Economics, Constituent Institution of the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. E-mail: pipulbd@gmail.com
 
 

The A ' Z of Optimal Value System of Taxation

Vijimon V. Oorkolil 1



We propose a new single tax for all purposes. It meets the optimal taxation rules. A novel approach of negative tax rate is developed for this purpose. This new coherent framework will be able to capture all of the incredible complexities that characterize the real world onto a single tax, OVS tax. The taxes collected with this method would be optimal with minimum leakages and thus revenue security for governments. There are no imbalances and undesirable outcomes as a result of its implementation. The new tax system makes life easier for the tax agency and the taxpayer. Importantly, it brings immense social and economic benefits for a country.

Keywords: taxes, tax rates, tax incidence, universal basic income.

JEL Classification Code: H20, H21, H22, H24, H26, H30, H60, H71.

  1. Pollmatrix Enterprize, 13/60, Banashankari Nivas, Behind TTK, Shakthinagar, Bangalore-560016, Karnataka. Email: ovvijimon@gmail.com
  2. Mirrlees, James A, and Stuart Adam. n.d. Tax By Design.
  3. Waters, Tom, and Thomas Pope. 2020. "A Survey of The UK Tax System.
 
 

Investigating the Cointegration and Causality Between Water Pollution and Output of Kanpur Tanneries Using the ARDL Approach

Aisha Sheikh 1

Owais Ibni Hassan 1

Kanpur, an industrial city in Uttar Pradesh has been long renowned for its leather industry. Growing pollution in the Ganga in the Kanpur stretch is perceived to be associated with the tanning industry, which is one of the grossly polluting industries under the Environment Protection Act. This paper attempts to investigate the cointegration and causality between Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) found downstream Jajmau and the tanning industrial net value added (NVA) over the period of 1992- 2018 using the auto regressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique, Augmented Dickey-Fuller test (ADF), Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin test and the Granger Causality test. Secondly, we analyse the reasons for the weak environmental performance of the tanneries in Kanpur. No short term or long term cointegrating relationship between BOD and NVA could be determined. The Granger causality results do not support a causation between tanning NVA and BOD. A host of reasons are responsible for the poor environmental performance of the tanneries, which is practically posing an existential threat to the industry in Kanpur in the wake of renewed efforts at enforcing regulations. Main reasons for the weak environmental performance of tanneries are - serious infrastructural deficit including a flawed Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Basket (UASB) process based plant Common Effluent Treatment Plant and a dilapidated conveyance network, weak enforcement and endemic corruption, complacence on part of the local state bodies and the tanners and finally an industry dominated by small scale units.

Keywords: tanneries, industrial pollution, Kanpur, Ganga pollution.
JEL Code: Q56; R11; Q53

  1. Independent Reseracher, 7/164 Swaroop Nagar, Kanpur-208002.Email: ayeshafightersheikh@gmail.com
  2. Research Scholar, Department of Economics, Jamia Millia Islamia, Okhla, New Delhi. Email: owaisibnihassan@gmail.com
 
 

Production Efficiency of Textile Exporting Firms in Pakistan

Inayatullah Khan 1
Mohammad Afzal 2

Pakistan's economy desperately relies on cotton and cotton textile industry. Textile manufacturers and policy makers are giving priority to improve production efficiency in the textile industry. To beat rival firms, production efficiency will count more than ever before. Considering the objective, this study has analyzed the status of production performance by measuring technical efficiency of textile exporting manufacturing firms in Pakistan. The data from annual reports of limited companies registered in the stock exchanges of Pakistan has been used. Cobb-Douglas (half - normal) Stochastic Frontier output model and MLE technique has been applied. Empirical results have reported that on average, during the 2008 - 09, the variable 'cost of material' has the greatest elasticity of output i.e. 0.719 while the variable 'salaries and wages' has the second greatest elasticity of output i.e. 0.154. The third input (Energy charges) has elasticity of output 0.096, while the fourth input (value of operating fixed asset) has the lowest elasticity of output i.e. 0.039, The level of technical efficiency of the firms in Pakistan is ranged from 66.5 percent to 96.73 percent with a mean 89.55 percent during the year.

  1. Ph.D. scholar, Department of Economics, Gomal University, D. I. Khan, Pakistan. Email: inayat66@gmail.com
  2. Professor [former], COMSATS University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Email: profafzal@gmail.com