Special Centennial Issue

No. 398

January 2020

Vol. C

ISSN: 0019-5170

Contents


 
 

Professor Manohar Lal and the Face of Imperial Design


Ram Narain Lohkar1


 

Professor Manohar Lal, one of the ablest and finest Indians of his time, was born in the twilight of 19th century and expired a couple of years after India became Independent. On the basis of available records, it becomes apparent that he was a genius as a student scholar, a teacher and academician dedicated to the pursuit of truth and excellence with a comprehensive vision of knowledge, a nationalist at heart with a pro-international apolitical attitude, competent administrator, and a reserved and upright politicianstatesman. Commensurate records are not available on him perhaps for the reason that he belonged to a subject nation with a caliber which did not accord well in the mental system of either the ruler or the ruled. Born in a reformist environment of a resurgent Indian province of Punjab, he performed with an exceptional brilliance during his studies in India and abroad. Back from Cambridge, in 1906, he got straight into the position of Principal of Randhir College, the prestigious university college in Kapurthala, and after three years got the newly created coveted Minto Professorship of Economics in Calcutta University in 1909. After teaching there for just a little over 3 years, he was forced out of the field of his choice in a high-handed manner, he did not give up his academic interests and fulfilled his obligations to the society in the true spirit of selfless action (Nishkam karma). His contribution could not be properly evaluated in a fair manner perhaps because the British Indian government of the time considered nationals of Indian originas an inferior affiliate to the Colonial Masters, and Indian nationalists as Prussian type narrow-minded European nationalists and therefore enemy of their own empire. The only research level work on him by Professor J. Krishnamurty was published in Modern Asian Studies in 2010; whatever written evidence on him is available in the public domain is very limited, some of which remained obscure and could not be used to evaluate his contribution adequately and shed light on his real self.

  1. Professor of Economics (Retd.), University of Allahabad. E-mail - ramlohkar@gmail.com

 
 

Area, Gender and Regional Disparities in Commuting Patterns within the Districts of India’s Most Populous State

Taru Saigal,1 Arun Kr. Vaish,2 NVM Rao,3

 

Rapid urbanization not only brings about environmentally unsustainable mobility patterns but also leads to the empowerment of women. This paper aims to examine the been analyzed. The results of this paper reveal an inclination observed in urban residents to avoid commuting short distances with non-motorized slow modes of transport and long distances with public transport and rather use individual motorized transport. While women in urban areas are switching over to two-wheeler motorized modes of transport from slow modes, their dependence on NMT for traveling short distances is still high. Majority of the trips in both rural and urban areas of the districts are undertaken using slow modes of transport; however, the share of individual motorized modes though smaller is not trivial. The study also gives evidence of regional disparities in commuting patterns within the state. Jhansi, which represents the Bundelkhand region of the state, has the lowest share of women commuting to non-agricultural jobs and the highest share of total commuting trips by rural men being undertaken on foot. The paper, therefore, underlines the significance of taking into account area, gender, and regional differences before formulating the transport policies.

Key Words: commuting pattern; rural-urban area; gender; region; sustainable commuting; India.

  1. Research Scholar, Department of Economics and Finance, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani Campus, Rajasthan- 333031, India. Email: p20170405@pilani.bitspilani.ac.in
  2. Assistant Professor, Department of Economics and Finance, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani Campus, Rajasthan- 333031, India. Email: akvaish@pilani.bitspilani.ac.in
  3. Professor, Department of Economics and Finance, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani Campus, Rajasthan- 333031, India. Email: nvmrao@pilani.bitspilani.ac.in

 
 

Does the Government Expenditure Really Help to Nigeria For its Economic Growth?

Bhola Khan 1


 

Government expenditure in an any economy has increases production and employment opportunities and further it leads to economic growth of the economy. The objective of this study is to highlight the relationship between government expenditure and its impact on Nigerian economy form 1996 non-oil revenue and recurrent expenditure having positive relationship with economic growth, while capital expenditure has negative impact on economic growth. The study therefore, suggests that the government should ensure more efficient and prudent management of oil revenue and adhere to proper implementation of capital projects in Nigeria while maintaining and improving the non-oil revenue generation.

Key Words: Government Expenditure, Capital Expenditure, Recurrent Expenditure, Oil Revenue.

  1. Department of Economics, Yobe State University, Damaturu, Nigeria Email: bholakhan.apj@gmail.com

 
 

Size and Proximity Effects of Economy on India’s Bilateral Trade in Tea

Pradeed Kumar Singh 1  
Pradyut Guha 2  



Using data collected from various published sources, present study made an attempt to examine the size and proximity effect of the economies on India’s bilateral trade in tea with her leading trading partner’s during 1988-2016 using gravity model of trade theory. The findings of the study are consistent with the gravity model of trade theory. However, geographic adjacency seen to have significant inverse association with India’s bilateral trade in tea during the 29 years period of study. Beside self sufficiency the restrictive trade policies of neighbouring nations to some extent responsible for sluggish export of Indian tea to the contiguous nations during the reference period.

Key Words: Gravity model, tea export, proximity
JEL Classification Code: F1, F10

  1. Assistant Professor Stage II, Department of Economics, University of Allahabad, Prayagraj-211 002 (UP). E-mail: pks@allduniv.ac.in
  2. Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Sikkim University, Sikkim. E-mail: pguha@cus.ac.in

 
 

Fiscal Decentralization and Macroeconomic Stability in Nigeria

Blessing Ose OLIGBI 1



Given the benefits of fiscal decentralization and the drive among developing and transition countries including Nigeria to decentralize their expenditures and revenues to subnational government as part of a broader objective for enhancing public sector efficiency, this study examined fiscal value statistic confirmed the existence of co - integrating equations among the variables of interest. This suggested the tendency of a long run relationship among the variables under consideration. The VAR result indicated that the one lagged period of macroeconomic variable is not a driver of economic growth as it coefficient for exhibits negatives values and not statistically significant. The VECM result indicated that there will be long run relation among the variables under consideration. The result went further to prove that fiscal decentralization has not encouraged macroeconomic stability that has significantly led to economic growth in Nigeria. The study recommended that there practical devolution of fiscal responsibility especially in the areas of revenue assignment. Furthermore, States should be able to develop and design Internally Generated Revenue mechanisms capable of creating wealth, enhancing economic growth, raising the standard of living and reducing the level of frictions arising from unending fiscal transfers.

Keywords: Co-integration, Economic growth, Expenditure, Fiscal decentralization, Macroeconomic stability, Revenue

  1. Department of Economics and Development Studies, Igbinedion University Okada, Edo State, Nigeria. Email: blessingoligbi2@gmail.com, blessing.oligbi@iuokada.edu.ng

 
 

Determinants of Food Grain Production in Indian States: Panel Co-integration and VECM Analysis

Pradeep Kumar Panda 1


In this paper the author finds the link among the food grain production, gross state domestic product at current prices, net irrigated area, fertilizer used by states, cropping intensity, state fiscal deficit and state gross capital formation and negative relation with state fiscal deficit. JohansenFisher cointegration test confirmed four co-integrating equations. VECM is stable, not normally distributed and non-stationary with problem of autocorrelation. VECM states that there is significant long run association but in cointegrating equations change of food grain production and change of SDP have long run causality and they are moving towards equilibrium with slow speed of adjustment but change of net irrigated area and change of cropping intensity do not move to equilibrium level because they have no long run causality with the independent variables. On the other hand, there is short run causality running from state fiscal deficit to SDP and cropping intensity only but rest of the variables did not show any short run causality.

Keywords: Food grain production, Panel co-integration, Panel vector error correction, Causality, Wald Test, India.
JEL Code: C12,C23,Q10,Q15,Q18

  1. Doctoral Scholar (Economics), School of Social Sciences, IGNOU, New Delhi, Email: pradeep25687@yahoo.co.in

 
 

Measurement of Marketing Efficiency of Rice: An Empirical Study of the State of Uttar Pradesh


Rajeev Kumar Singh 1 Kakali Majumdar 2
Meenakshi Gupta 3



Background
Marketing is as important as agricultural farming in India. Uttar Pradesh, locate of this sector, still it is facing lots of problems. The present work is an attempt to study the marketing efficiency of rice in the Bundelkhand region of state of Uttar Pradesh.

Objective(s)
The specific objectives of the present paper are to identify the various marketing channels of rice in Bundelkhand of Uttar Pradesh and to measure the marketing efficiency of the identified channels under study.

Methodology
Primary data were collected through questionnaires. Multistage sampling technique has been used for collecting the primary data. Efficiency Model of Acharya and Aggarwal, ANOVA and Simple Regression Models have been used for the present work.

Results
The present study observed five important marketing channels for rice in Bundelkhand of Uttar Pradesh. Channel with four players namely Farmer, Miller-cum-wholesaler, Retailer and Consumer was observed the most efficient channel. The difference in marketing efficiencies of the channels was also observed statistically significant.

Keywords: Marketing Efficiency, Rice, Channels, Multistage sampling, Acharya and Aggarwal Model, ANOVA, Regression.
JEL Codes: Q10, Q13

  1. PhD Student, School of Business, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Kakryal, Katra, Jammu, India, Pin-182320. E-mail: rrajeevsinghibm@gmail.com
  2. Associate professor, School of Economics, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Kakryal, Katra, Jammu, India, Pin-182320. E-mail: kakoli.majumdar@smvdu.ac.in
  3. Assistant professor, School of Economics, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Kakryal, Katra, Jammu, India, Pin-182320.

 
 

Economic Viability of Marginal Farmers: A Case Study of West Bengal  

Amit Mandal 1


The concentration of marginal farms and their possession of more than fifty percent of the operated land make their role very significant in West Bengal agriculture. An attempt has been made in this paper to capture the spatial variation and determining factors for the economically viable farmers in productivity, net income from paddy cultivation and annual farm return and the important determinants for the variation across the blocks have also been highlighted. It is observed that for the economic viability of the marginal farmers, the determinants are- irrigation cost, hired labour cost and distance from market; squeeze the level of profit across the blocks while crop diversification enhanced their level of income.

Keywords: small scale agriculture, spatial variation, economic viability, probit model, marginal effect.
JEL Code: C01, Q13, Q18, J1,

  1. Assistant Professor, Mankar College, University of Burdwan, Mankar, West Bengal-713144

 
 

Co-movements between Equity Prices and House Prices in Pakistan  


Khalid Mustafa1
 

The study aims to explore the long-run causal association between Pakistan's house prices and equity prices. The data are monthly and covered the period from Janu it is essential to apply the VAR test. The results of the VAR test show that various variables are insignificant and other statistics are weak. Estimated EGARCH (1, 1) models show that both indices are positive and highly significant, indicating that bad news and the good news of the same size have different effects. It is suggested that a strong monetary and fiscal policy is needed during the inflationary and deflationary period, as house prices and equity prices are volatile, so both inflation.

  1. Professor, Department of Economics, University of Karachi, Pakistan. E-mail: khalidm@uok.edu.pk, khalidku2009@yahoo.com

 
 

Financial Inclusion & Entrepreneurship as Drivers of Socially Inclusive Economic Growth: Lessons from China
 

Banwo Adetoro Olaniyi1


This study examines the notion of financial inclusion and entrepreneurship as inclusive economy drivers of nations. Specifically, it draws inferences from the economic growth of content analysis. Certain factors such as financial access, opportunities, business activities, entrepreneurship and economic growth were adopted to examine the notion of financial inclusion in this work. It hinges its theoretical framework on the financial inclusion theories of public service, collaborative intervention and financial literacy theories.

Therefore, this research work argues that the Chinese model of financial inclusion can be applicable to Nigeria if only this institution has government support, increased awareness activities and combined integrated efforts of these institutions. It depicts that if Nigeria must have a successful financial inclusion policy, it must deviate from its infrastructural support model and adopt an inclusive financial policy for its citizenry. It concludes that a nation’s economic performance is highly influenced by entrepreneurship and financial inclusion.

Keywords: Financial access, opportunities, business activities, entrepreneurship and economic growth.

  1. Department of Linguistics, African and Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Lagos, Akoka-Lagos, Nigeria. Email: abanwo@unilag.edu.ng, banwotoro@gmail.com