Income Distribution and Poverty Alleviation
for the Native Hawaiian Community
Seiji Naya

This paper raises an important question about the linkages between growth, income
distribution and poverty alleviation. It argues that high economic growth is no guarantee of lower levels of poverty. It further advocates that one must understand the economic characteristics of poor groups and also examine how economic growth is achieved, how it is shared by different groups and what policies are adopted to alleviate poverty. On the basis of the analysis of the recent experiences of high growth performance of the Hawaiian economy and the persistent poverty conditions of the ‘natives hawaiians’, the paper has attempted to bring out a number of analytical issues of wider relevance.

The author is Distinguished Visiting Senior Fellow, East West Center and Emeritus Professor, University of Hawaii.
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The author is Distinguish Visiting Senior Fellow, East West Center and Emeritus Professor, University of Hawaii.
 

Poverty, Employment and Growth
Pre- and Post-Reform Experience
Ruddar Datt

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the nature of the nexus observed in the preand post-reform periods, between growth on the one hand and poverty and employment on the other. The paper presents a profile of the findings of some of the research studies and select expert group reports on the subject. The paper has tried to argue that the experience in India brings out that there is an urgent need for adopting pro-poor and pro-employment strategies since the strategy of growth alone would not resolve the problems of poverty and unemployment in the country.

The author is Noted Economist, Former Professor of Delhi University.
Email: dattruddar@rediffmail.com
 

The Tenancy Ladder Revisited
Jaideep Roy

There have been many attempts to explain the widespread practice of sharecropping which was deemed to be an inefficient institution as compared to fixed rent arrangements. This note argues that different contractual arrangements may arise out of the existence of differences in perceptions between the landlord and his tenant regarding future uncertainties arising out of innate psychological characteristics of individuals and the so-called ‘belief in luck’. In particular, we show that a risk-neutral landlord prefers sharecropping with a risk-neutral tenant who is a pessimist while he resorts to a fixed-rent contract with a risk-neutral tenant who is an optimist. A new theoretical foundation to agricultural ladder is proposed.

Jaideep Roy, Department of Economics, Lancaster University, United Kingdom.
Email: j.roy@lancaster.ac.uk
 

Exploring the Sources of Economic Growth in India
An Exercise in Growth Accounting
R. Mohan

The paper attempts to examine the sources of growth of per capita output at the overall and sectoral level using growth accounting methodology. It separates the contribution of growth of Total Factor Inputs (TFIs) and growth of Total Factor Productivity (TFPG), the latter being computed as a residual. The empirical examination reveals that residual has contributed mainly to the increase in the overall as well as sectoral growth in the second-half of the 1980s. Its contribution, has however, stagnated and declined during the first and second half respectively of the 1990s. The components of TFPG need to be anlaysed to find reasons for this.
 

Privatisation and Social Spending in the Least Developed African Economies
A Study of Ethiopia
Jesiah Selvam

This paper examines the linkage between privatisation and social spending in the least
developed African economies with reference to Ethiopia. Many previous studies have proved that privatisation has had a direct and positive effect on social welfare. The study used data over 10 years, 1994/95–2003/04, and simple econometrics model to test whether or not there is any connectivity between privatisation and social spending. Four major overheads are selected for this study: education, health, road construction and social welfare. The empirical results show that the connectivity of privatisation in relation to these overheads is weak and fragile, owing to the small size of privatisation programme which was implemented in Ethiopia. War is also identified as an affecting factor on social spending. This study concludes that the objectives when they are set must be compatible with the programme. Inconsistent and lavish objectives may cause damage about the opinion of the particular policy when evaluated.

The author is Professor and Director, Indian Academy School of Management Studies (IASMS), Bangalore, India.
Email: sjesiah@yahoo.com
 

Official Versus Private Financial Flows
A Comparison of their Macroeconomic Determinants in Developing Countries
Georgios Karras

This paper investigates the determinants of (net) total, private, and official financial flows for 68 developing countries in the 1968-2003 period. The empirical results show that a
parsimonious set of five basic macroeconomic variables provide significant explanatory power for these flows. In particular, private flows are increasing in the country’s starting-period income per capita, average investment rate, and average trade openness; while official flows are decreasing in the recipient country’s average investment rate and average growth rate, and increasing in the country’s average government size and trade openness. The share of private flows in total flows is increasing in the recipient country’s starting level of income, average investment rate, and average growth; while it is decreasing in the country’s average government size and trade openness.

The author is Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago.
E-mail: gkarras@uic.edu.
 

Socioeconomic Determinants of Female Education in a Muslim Family
An Econometric Analysis
Shahid Ahmed

The paper investigates the socioeconomic determinants of girl’s education in a Muslim family. The paper also presents broad picture of Muslim literacy in India. Based on primary data, collected through stratified random sampling, the study examines the impact of socioeconomic variables on girl’s education. The results indicate that girls’ education is positively related to parental education and income of the family, and negatively related to household size and the cultural attitude towards prevailing sociocultural environment in schools, colleges and universities. The parents’ preference for girl’s early marriage also has a negative effect, particularly on higher education of girls. The paper is basically based on specifying and estimating the bivariate correlation functions, partial correlations, linear regression and the logit model. The study suggests that government’s active role and communities’ positive participation are important to bring about a structural change in Muslim female education.

The author is an Economist with the UNCTAD India Programme, New Delhi. While writing this paper, he was working as Reader in the Department of Economics, Jamia Millia Islamia (Central University), New Delhi. Email: shah_ec_jmi@yahoo.co.in

COMMUNICATIONS FOR DEBATE AND RESEARCH / 1

E-Governance in India
Issues and Strategic Perspectives
K.G. Radhakrishnan

Electronic Governance or e-Governance is emerging as the order of the day in several countries. This new pattern of governance is reinventing governments. The Government of India has also taken several initiatives in this direction. However, replicable e-Governance projects are few and far between in the country. Various issues such as inadequacies in infrastructure support, ICT spending and IT diffusion, localisation of computer environment, public awareness/support, IT skills of implementers, overall coordination, and stakeholder participation, digital divide, traditional bureaucratic mindset, etc., are restriciting the progress of e-Governance in India. An appropriate strategy to overcome the obstacles and accelerate the advance towards ‘SMART’ governance is the imperative before the nation.

The author belongs to the cadre of Indian Economic Service, but the views expressed are purely personal.

COMMUNICATIONS FOR DEBATE AND RESEARCH / 2

An Economic Profile of Groundnut Cultivation in Punjab
D.K. Grover and J.M. Singh

Owing to a variety of reasons, the groundnut cultivation has almost disappeared from the
cropping scene of the state over the years. The present study was planned to examine the
various factors responsible for dismal performance of groundnut cultivation in the state.
Though, groundnut cannot compete with the major kharif season crop i.e. paddy in the state, yet it has got comparative advantages over maize in sub-mountainous region of the state. Therefore, the cultivation of groundnut can be promoted in selected agro-climatic belts where the competition is not with paddy but with other low yielding crops like maize. The state average productivity of the crop has also declined over the years, reflecting inadequate research efforts for the upliftment of groundnut in the state. The regression analysis brought out that groundnut productivity can be enhanced by spending more on nitrogenous fertilisers and human labour for hoeing. Thus, state should follow micro level planning to identify the potential pockets to promote such minor crops and also make them more profitable by enhancing the yield level along with due market support.

D.K. Grover is Deputy Director, Agro–Economic Research Centre.
J.M. Singh is Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana.

COMMUNICATIONS FOR DEBATE AND RESEARCH / 3

Impact of Environmental Standards on World Capital Market:
A Two-period Global Equilibrium Framework
Biswajit Chatterjee and Rupamanjari Sinha Ray

In an overlapping generations model a two period global equilibrium set up has been demonstrated in this paper. The main purpose of the paper is to verify the relation between trade and environment from a developing country perspective. It is perceived that there exists a trade off between trade and environment. Our earlier works on overlapping generations in a small open economy framework have shown that for less developed countries where short-lived individuals are not conscious enough to maintain environmental quality, which they themselves are polluting, government intervention is absolutely necessary. The impact of government intervention made directly through taxation leads to a situation where people are being burdened with environmental tax. Again there may exist a positive relation between trade and environment. The developed economies with environment policy are the witnesses of the positive relation between trade and environment. The question then arises is whether the developing economies could also exhibit a positive relationship. The possible answer lies in the fact that though government intervention is necessary for the maintenance of environment quality, it should be implemented in an indirect way rather than directly. Indirect intervention takes place by setting the degree of environmental standards. In this paper impact of environmental standard on world capital market has been introduced. The paper has analysed that a developing country, which initially has a poor environmental standard, could improve their future current account balance at the cost of maintaining high environmental standards in the present period by substantially influencing the world capital market thereby diverting foreign investments to the home country and trade can improve with world capital growth path showing an improvement.

Biswajit Chatterjee is Professor, Jadavpur University,Kolkata.
E-mail: biswajit3@hotmail.com 
Rupamanjari Sinha Ray is Senior Lecturer, Asia Pacific Institute of Management, New Delhi.
E-mail: rupamanjari@asiapacific.edu 

BOOK REVIEW / 1

An Economic Analysis of Human Development-Priyanka Singh
(Sunrise Publication, New Delhi, 2004, pp.XV + 176).

Reviewed by Dr Rajesh Jaiswal, Associate Fellow at the National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi for almost twenty years.

BOOK REVIEW / 2

ICTs and Indian Economic Development
Economy, Work, Regulation-
Ashwani Saith and M. Vijayabaskar (eds.)
(Sage Publication, New Delhi and London, 2007, Price Rs. 850)

Reviewed by Dr. Somesh K. Mathur, . Email: Som3@vsnl.com