| Centre for Development Economics: Annual Report 2000–2001 |
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Centre for Development Economics at the Delhi School of Economics
Centre
for Development Economics
I. Introduction
The composition and present incumbents of the CDE Council responsible for all major decisions are as follows: V.
Pandit – Executive Director III. Advisors Kaushik Basu; Professor of Economics, Cornell University (Chairman) Kenneth Arrow; Professor of Economics, Stanford University, and Nobel Laureate in Economics Bimal Jalan; Governor, Reserve Bank of India K. N. Raj; National Professor of Economics Amartya Sen; Master, Trinity College, and Nobel Laureate in Economics IV. Aims (a) to promote and disseminate research; (b) to sponsor economists from all over India and abroad to visit the Delhi School of Economics (DSE); (c) to conduct regular conferences and workshops; and (d) to upgrade research infrastructure, including communication and computing facilities. V. Computer Unit The Centre has a well-equipped computer unit with software and hardware for meeting the research and training needs of post-graduate, M. Phil and research scholars, and has acquired several data sets. The Centre has a wide range of statistical and econometric software packages. In addition, e-mail facility is also available at the Centre, as is access to the Internet. VI. Seminars and Workshops An important activity of the Centre is to hold seminars, public lectures and workshops. VII. Publications The Centre's research output is available in the form of books, occasional papers and working papers. The publications of the Centre are currently being exchanged with about thirty research Institutes in India and abroad. VIII.Research Projects The Centre also houses research projects. Currently five projects are housed in the Centre. IX. Library The Centre maintains a mini library. It gets working/discussion papers from about thirty research institutes from all over the world. X. Training The Centre has also started organising short term refresher courses on request from the Government of India. XI. Activities during 1999-2000 Infrastructure at the CDE The Centre became fully operational after completely shifting to a new integrated computer and research facility during the early part of the year 1999. This facility was largely set up with CDE resources, supplemented by grants from the University Grants Commission to the Department under the Centre for Advanced Studies. There was no major upgradation this year except that nine Pentium-II and six Pentium-III computers were made available at the Centre. An MOU was signed between Information Technologies (India) Ltd and the Centre for Internet connectivity of 64 KBPS bandwidth at ITIL, Usha Bhawan.
Keeping up with its tradition, the Centre arranged a number of seminars this year covering a wide range of topics. On 13th August, 1999, Dr Wietze Lise, Institute for Environmental Studies, Amsterdam, conducted a seminar 'On the Impact of Climate on Tourist Destination Choice'. On 27th August, 1999, Mr T. C. A. Srinivasa Raghavan, Business Standard spoke on 'Regulating the Insurance Industry'. On 15th September, 1999, Dr Surender Kumar, Jawaharlal Nehru University coducted a seminar on 'A Methodology for Valuation of Pollution Abatement : An Application to the Thermal Power Sector in India'. On 4th November, 1999, Dr Amartya Lahiri, University of California at Los Angeles, gave a lecture on 'Output Costs, BOP Crises, and Optimal Interest Rate Policy'. On 2nd December, 1999, Dr Pradeep Dubey, Centre for Game Theory, SUNY at Stony Brook, USA, conducted a seminar on 'When Less is More... More or Less'. On 15th December, 1999, Dr N. J. Kurien, Planning Commission, spoke on 'Widening Regional Disparities in India'. On 17th December, 1999, Professor Duncan Ironmonger, The University of Melbourne, Australia, conducted a seminar on 'Time Use Surveys'. On 20th December, 1999, Professor K. N. Murty, University of Hyderabad, spoke on 'Effects of Changes in Household Size, Consumer Taste and Preferences on Demand Pattern in India'. On 13th January, 1999, Dr Sanjeev Goyal, Erasmus University, conducted a seminar on 'A Non-Cooperative Model of Network Formation'. On 27th January, 1999, Dr Pushkar Maitra, University of Sydney, gave a lecture on 'The Effect of Transfers on Household Expenditure Patterns and Poverty in South Africa'. In the month of Feburary, 2000, Professor Aman Ullah, University of California, Riverside, gave a series of eight lectures on Nonparametric Econometrics. On 17th February, 2000, Professor Robert Cassen, London School of Economics, conducted a seminar on 'Population, Environment and Development: India in the 21st Century'. On
25th February, 2000, Dr Sjak Smulders, Tilburg University, conducted
a seminar on 'Growth and Environment'. On 13th March, 2000, Professor Angus Deaton, Princeton University, gave a lecture on 'Prices and Poverty in India'. On 19th May, 2000, Professor Adrian Wood, University of Sussex, conducted a seminar on 'Awakening the Other Giant: Trade and Human Resources in India'. On 17th July, 2000, Dr Abhijit Banerji, MIT, spoke on 'Social Networks and Investment'. Workshops This year three major workshops were organised. 1. Economic Aspects of National Security. The centre organised a one-day workshop on 'Economic Aspects of National Security', attended by about fifty scholors. Eight papers were presented on the topics of The Political Economy of Militarism and Nationalism; the Political Economy of the Kashmir Conflict; Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Peace Science; Achieving Economic Security: The Fiscal Deterrent; The Fiscal Costs of Nuclear Weaponisation in South Asia; National Security in an Open Economy; and Technology and National Security. The scholars who presented the papers were Professor Samuel Bowles (University of Massachussetts), Mr Siddhartha Varadarajan (Times of India), Mr Swaminathan A. Aiyar (The Economic Times), Dr Chatterji (State University of New York at Binghamton), Dr Rakesh Mohan (NCAER), Mr Rammanohar Reddy (The Hindu), Dr Sanjay Baru (ICRIER) and Dr Yoginder Alagh (Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research). 2. Policy Modelling for India. A two-day workshop on Policy Modelling for India was organised by the Centre on 8th and 9th May, 2000. The workshop was addressed by Professor A. L. Nagar (Formerly Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Delhi), and attended by about seventy-five social scientists from various institutions in Delhi. Thirteen papers were presented on topics relating to Macroeconomic Modelling for India; An Index of Coincident Economic Indicators for the Indian Economy; State-Level Food Demand in India: Some Evidence on Rank-Three Demand Systems; Econometrics of Residuals in Economic Modelling: An Application to Indian Macro Data; Financial Factors, Inventory Investment and Economic Activity—Some Empirical Evidence for India; Globalisation, Technical Efficiency and Export Behaviour of Indian Engineering Firms; Validating Predictions of a CGE Model of India: An Introspection; Exploring the Role of Maturity in Debt Management: The Indian Evidence; Local Ownership Requirements and Total Tax Collections; Integration of Money Markets: Evidence from Internet Rate; Why India's Economic Reforms Stumbled? One of the Plausible Stories; and Agricultural Trade Liberalization under GATT and Economic Reforms in India: A CGE Modelling Exercise. Scholars who presented the papers were Professor K. Krishnamurthy (Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad), Dr Pami Dua (DSE), Dr J. V. Meenakshi (DSE), Dr N. Sinha (University of Rajasthan), Dr G. Darbha (National Institute of Public Finance Policy), Dr R. N. Aggarwal (Institute of Economic Growth), Dr R. Chadha (NCAER), Bhupal Singh and Sarat Chandra Dhal (Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai), Dr Chander Kant (Seton Hall University and the CDE), Dr Ila Patnaik (NCAER), Dr H. Mukhopadhyay (National Institute of Public Finance Policy), and Dr Sanjib Pohit (ICRIER).
The chairpersons and discussants included scholars from NCAER, IEG,
NIPFP, GIPE (Pune), ICRIER, and DSE. 3.
India Poverty Assessment. The DSE Study examined trends in rural-urban and inter-state (15 major states) poverty in income (based on National Sample Surveys) and non-income (health and education) dimensions over the last two decades. It also explored (a) the characteristics of the income-poor households (b) the determinants of the rural headcount ratio (c) the growth-poverty linkage (analytically as well as empirically) and (d) the prospects for poverty reduction in the future. The NCAER study focussed on the relationship between economic reforms and income poverty on the basis of the Market Information Survey of Households (MISH) between 1987–88 and 1997–98. Movements in income-poverty for the post-1991 reform period turned out to be different in the two studies. There was considerable discussion on the relative merits of two data sources—NSS and MISH—as well as on factors influencing rural and urban poverty. The technical session was chaired by Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Member, Planning Commission and the discussants included Professor Pravin Visaria, Institute of Economic Growth, Dr Abhijit Sen, JNU and Professor Nikhilesh Bhattacharya. Training Courses The Centre also organised three refresher courses — (i) Applied Econometrics (ii) Time Series and Forecasting with Applications, and (iii) Economic Theory and Econometrics— on request from the Government of India, Ministry of Planning and Programme Implementation, Department of Statistics. The trainees were middle-level officers and probationers of the Indian Statistical Service. Summer Travelling Fellowships and Field Trips This year five summer travel fellowships were awarded to students of DSE. The selected projects were 'Identity in the Aligarh Muslim University'; 'Armenians in Calcutta'; 'Cooperative Credit in Bihar'; 'Loktak Lake Purity'; and 'Pollution in Benaras'.
The research projects currently housed at the CDE are (1) Price Formation in Grain Markets in Northern India: Auctions and Strategic Behaviour Principal Investigators: A. Banerji and J. V. Meenakshi This study examines whether prices in regulated grain markets are determined efficiently. It also analyzes whether traders in such markets are able to collude successfully to force down prices paid to farmers. Funded by the Reserve Bank of India, the second phase of this eighteen-month project was completed in February, 2000. It entailed primary data collection in the paddy markets of Panipat and Narela. An extremely rich data set, consisting of price and quality data (with prices formed under the institutions of auctions and mutual-bargaining) has been compiled and is currently being analyzed. In addition, interviews with a spectrum of farmers, commission agents, millers and market committee officials were conducted in order to provide a more complete understanding of the relationships mediated by grain markets and their consequences for the data generating process. A draft report is in the process of being completed.
Principal Investigator: V. Pandit The project 'Macroeconomic LINK Model for India' is devoted to macroeconomic policy analysis and forecasting for both of which it has already earned a reputation nationally and internationally. As of now the macroeconometric model that has been the result of sustained work over the past seven years is the most comprehensive one that has been developed for India so far. The data base which has been used to estimate the model is by far the richest that has ever been put together under any project of this kind.
Principal Investigator: V. Pandit The main task of the project involves 'Macroeconomic Development: Long Term Perspectives (towards 2020)' which deals with (a) Macroeconomic growth model towards 2020; (b) Structural changes (employment and output); (c) Capital accumulation, Capital-output ratio and FDI etc.; and (d) Strategies for sustainable economic development.
The final report has already been submitted to the Finance Commission. The study examined the relationship between the availability of infrastructure and backwardness. Principal Investigator: T. C. A. Srinivasa Raghavan The
objectives were to help avoid the mistakes committed in the liberalisation
of the telecommunications and aviation industries, and to prepare an
indicative roadmap. The project discusses the size of the Indian insurance
market and its sub-sectors, examines the current legal framework and
suggests changes that are needed in it for ensuring competition, enunciates
a sound basis for devising an efficient and workable competition policy
so that the DoT – cellular operators type of conflict is avoided,
and examines the role of foreign companies and the likely consequences
of permitting such collaborations at the micro as well as macro levels.
The report also discusses in detail the problems with contract enforcement
in India and the implications of this for the insurance business with
private sector participation. It recommends that the best way to ensure
contract performance is to have much stronger and effective dispute
settlement mechanisms. (6) The Persistence of Colonial Trade Patterns. Principal Investigator: Aditya Bhattacharjea This project attempts to establish econometrically that even three or four decades after formal decolonization European countries such as France and the UK still have significantly higher market shares in the imports of their former colonies compared to those of other developing countries. It brings out the significance of market size and the number of years since independence in reducing this bias. The study will also draw upon economic theory and history for explanations of this phenomenon. (7) Re-examining the Inadequacy of Nutrient Intakes in India. Principal Investigators: Brinda Vishwanathan and J. V. Meenakshi This project attempts to map household calorie and protein inadequacies on to the expenditure space, and examines how these relationships have changed over time. It brings new evidence to bear upon debates on the relationship between income and nutrient intakes, and perceived dietary inadequacy. The study is based on the extensive household-level data set provided by the National Sample Survey Organization's consumer expenditure surveys.
Principal Investigator: V. Pandit The main aim of this project was to bring out the demographic socio-cultural and economic characteristics of the displaced population. Publications of the Members of the Centre (1999–2000) Shreekant Gupta 1. 'Environmental Impacts of Trade Liberalisation and Policies for Sustainable Management of Natural Resources: A Case Study of India's Automobile Sector', UNEP/99/2, Economics and Trade Unit, United Nations Environment Programme, Geneva, 1999. 2. 'India Environmental Profile: Policy Measures for Sustainable Development', Asian Development Bank, Programs (West) Department, Manila, 2000. 3. 'Climate Change Economics and Policy: An Indian Perspective', Shreekant Gupta, M. Toman and I. Chakravarty (eds), Resources for the Future, Washington DC, forthcoming. 4. 'Incentive-based Approaches for Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Issues and Prospects for India' in Climate Change Economics and Policy: An Indian Perspective, Shreekant Gupta, M. Toman and I. Chakravarty (eds), Resources for the Future, Washington DC, forthcoming. 5. Review editor, Chapter 3, The Development and Application of Scenarios in Climate Change Impact, Adaptation, and Vulnerability Assessment, Report of Working Group II, Third Assessment Report, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), United Nations. 6. CDE Working Paper no. 85
1. Manuscript prepared for publication Pradhan, R.N. (1999-2000), 'Collapse of the Indian Economy in Retrospect' pp.1–40 Ashwini Deshpande 1. 'Does Caste still define disparity? A look at inequality in Kerala, India', American Economic Review, Papers and proceedings, Vol. 90, No. 2, pp. 322–325. (May 2000) 2. 'Tracing the divide: Intergroup disparity across countries', with William A. Darity Jr, Eastern Economic Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1, Winter 2000, pp. 75–85. 3. 'Casting off servitude: caste and gender disparity in India', forthcoming in a volume on Feminism and Anti-racism: International struggles, edited by Kathleen Blee and France Winddance Twine, due to be published by the New York University Press in 2000. 4. 'Caste at Birth? Redefining disparity in India', forthcoming in Review of Development Economics. 5. 'Recasting Economic Inequality', forthcoming in Review of Social Economy, October, 2000. 6. 'Loan Pushing and triadic relations', Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 65, No. 4, April 1999, pp. 14-926. Sunil
Kanwar Pami Dua 1 'Effects of Monetary Variables on Real Output: Sensitivity Analysis', with H. Ahmed, Applied Economics Letters, forthcoming. 2. 'An Index of Coincident Economic Indicators for the Indian Economy', with A. Banerji, Journal of Quantitative Economics, Vol. 14, pp. 133–149, 2000. 3. 'The Impact of Financial and Fiscal Variables on Economic Growth: The Case of India and S. Korea', with A. I. Rashid and D. Salvatore, International Economic Journal, forthcoming. 4. 'Presence of Persistence in Industrial Production: The Case of India', with T. Mishra, Indian Economic Review, Vol. XXXIV, pp. 23–38, 1999. 5. 'Estimating the Public's Social Preference Function Between Inflation and Unemployment Using Survey Data: The Survey Research Center Versus Gallup', with D. J. Smyth and S. W. Taylor, Empirical Economics, Vol. 24, pp. 361-372, 1999. 6. Monthly Report on 'Connecticut Leading and Coincident Indices', with S. M. Miller, Connecticut Economic Digest. 7. Monthly Report on 'Leading and Coincident Indices for India', with A. Banerji, International Cyclical Outlook, Economic Cycle Research Institute, New York, May 2000 onwards. Om Prakash 1. 'The Portuguese and the Dutch in Asian Maritime Trade: A Comparative Analysis', in Sushil Chaudhury and Michel Morineau (eds), Merchants, Companies and Trade, Europe and Asia in the Early Modern Era, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999. 2. 'David Landes and the Rise of the West', European Review, 1999. 3. 'The Portuguese Indian Economy in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century' in T. R. de Souza and Jose Manuel Garcia (eds), Vasco da Gama and India, Lisbon, 1999. 4. 'Spice Trade in the Indian Ocean in the Early Modern Period', in Markus A. Denzel (ed.), Spices: Production, Trade and Consumption, Scripta Mercaturae Verlag, St Katharinen, Germany, 1999. 5. 'European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-colonial India', Vol. II.5 in the New Cambridge History of India series, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, paperback edition, 2000. Jean Dreze 1. Public Report on 'Basic Education in India', with Anuradha De and others, Oxford University Press, 1999. 2. The Economics of Famine (edited), International Library of Critical Writings in Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, 1999. 3. 'Crime, Gender and Society in India', with Reetika Khera, Population and Development Review, June 2000. 4. 'Health, Development and Economics', National Medical Journal of India, January 1999. 5. 'Public Action and Social Inequality', with Amartya Sen, in Harris-White B, and Subramanian S (eds), Illfare in India: Essays on India's Social Sector in honour of S. Guhan ,New Delhi, Sage, 1999. 6. 'Himachal's Success in Promoting Female Education', Manushi, 112, May–June, 1999 7. 'School Participation in Rural India', with Geeta Gandhi-Kingdon, Discussion Paper, STICERD, London School of Economics, August 1999; forthcoming in Review of Development Economics. 8. 'Fertility, Education and Development: further Evidence from India', with Mamta Murthi, Development Economics Discussion Paper 20, STICERD, London School of Economics, January 2000. 9. 'Militarism, Development and Democracy', Economic and Political Weekly, 1 April 2000.
Working Papers from the CDE, 1999-2000 (continued from reports of previous years) 69.
Jean Dreze and Geeta
Gandhi-Kingdon;
School
Participation in Rural India (September 1999) 70. Mausumi Das; Optimal Growth with a Variable Rate of Time Preference (December 1999) 71. Chander Kant; Local Ownership Requirements and Total Tax Collection (January 2000) 72. K. N. Murty; Effects of Changes in Household Size, Consumer Taste & Preferences on Demand Pattern in India (January 2000) 73. Pami Dua and Anirvan Banerji; An Index of Coincident Economic Indicators for the Indian Economy (January 2000) 74. V. Pandit; Macroeconometric Policy Modelling for India: A Review of Some Analytical Issues (February 2000) 75. A. Banerji; Selling Jointly Owned Assets via Bilateral Bargaining Procedures (March 2000) 76. Jean Dreze and Mamta Murthi; Fertility, Education and Development: Further Evidence from India (March 2000) 77. Aman Ullah and Tae-Hwy Lee; Nonparametric Bootstrap Tests for Neglected Nonlinearity in Time Series Regression Models (March 2000) 78. Aman Ullah and Kusum Mundra; Semiparametric Panel Data Estimation: An Application to Immigrants Homelink Effects on U. S. Producer Trade Flows (March,2000) 79. Ashok Guha; Why do Firms Exist? (March 2000) 80. Sunil Kanwar; Seasonality and Wage-responsiveness in nonclearing labour markets: Evidence from Indian agriculture (April 2000) 81. T. A. Bhavani and Suresh D. Tendulkar; Determinants of Firm-level Export Performance: A Case Study of Indian Textile Garments and Apparel Industry (May 2000) 82. Jaivir Singh; Judicial Intervention in the Contract of Employment: Some Reflections on Labour Adjudication in India (May 2000) 83. Aditya Bhattacharjea; Foreign Entry and Domestic Welfare: Can 'Market Discipline'Be Excessive? (July 2000) 84. Sudhir A. Shah; Optimal Pollution Regulation in Dynamic Stochastic Model (July 2000) 85. Shreekant Gupta; Incentive-Based Approaches for Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Issues and Prospects for India (July 2000).
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