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31. Identification of Regional Fundamental Economic Structure (FES) of India: An Input-Output and Field of Influence Approach

Author:
Sudhir K. Thakur
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This study provides an understanding of the Indian regional economy utilizing the fundamental economic structure (FES) approach. The FES construct implies that selected characteristics of an economy will vary predictably with region size, as measured by net state domestic product, population, and total gross output. The big question addressed in this study is if identifiable patterns of relations between various macro aggregates and economic transactions can be revealed via regional input-output tables. Jensen et al. (1988) discuss the tiered, partitioned, and temporal approaches to the identification of FES using input-output tables. This research addresses the following four questions: (1) Does a regional FES exist for the Indian economy during the period 1965? (2) What proportions of the cells are predictable? (3) Can the 1965 regional FES predict 1983-84 table for Punjab economy? (4) Does regional FES manifest an enhanced understanding of the Indian regional structure? Regression analyses are used to identify the FES and non-FES cells for the Indian regional economy. The regional input-output tables for 21 States and Union Territories provide data for the analysis. Analysis reveals regional FES includes primary and secondary sectors as components of FES. This research has extended the notion of FES to include: weak, moderate and strong FES cells.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
India, Asia, and Punjab

32. The Impact of Higher Standards in Patent Protection for Pharmaceutical Industries under the TRIPS Agreement: A Comparative Study of China and India

Author:
Xuan Li
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
A comparative study is undertaken that explores Chinese and Indian pharmaceutical industries under different patent regimes. It is found that relative to India, which had implemented process patent until 2005, China with a product patent regime since 1993 suffers from both lower drug accessibility and availability (the latter is a missing parameter in the literature). Also, China lags behind in both lower R investment and patents filed by Chinese nationals. Based on these findings and associated legal interpretation, we conclude that higher patent protection in China generates negative impacts on the pharmaceutical industries. Thus, governments should utilize TRIPS flexibilities and other regimes like price control to offset the anticompetitive effect in designing patent policies.
Topic:
Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
China, India, and Asia

33. The Impact of Reform on Economic Growth in China: A Principal Component Analysis

Author:
Ligang Song and Yu Sheng
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The study decomposes the sources of Chinese growth by first making a distinction between technological progress and technical efficiency in the growth accounting framework, and then identifying a series of reform programmes, such as urbanization, structural change, privatization, liberalization, banking and fiscal system reforms as the key components in institutional innovation which facilitate the improvement of technical efficiency and through which economic growth. These components are then incorporated into the model specification, which is estimated based on a panel dataset by applying the principal component analysis (PCA) to eliminate the multicollinearity problem. The results show that urbanization, liberalization and structural change in the form of industrialization are the most important components in contributing to the improvement of technical efficiency and hence growth, highlighting the importance of government policies aimed at enhancing further urbanization, openness to trade and industrial structural adjustments to sustain the growth momentum in China. The study also found that the potential for further enhancing growth through technical efficiency in China is considerable, which can be realized by deepening state-owned enterprises (SOEs) restructuring, and banking and fiscal system reform.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

34. Innovation Capacity and Economic Development: China and India

Author:
Peilei Fan
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Both China and India, the emerging giants in Asia, have achieved significant economic development in recent years. China has enjoyed a high annual GDP growth rate of 10 per cent and India has achieved an annual GDP growth rate of 6 per cent since 1981. Decomposing China and India's GDP growth from 1981 to 2004 into the three factors' contribution reveals that technology has contributed significantly to both countries' GDP growth, especially in the 1990s. R outputs (high-tech exports, service exports, and certified patents from USPTO) and inputs (R expenditure and human resources) further indicate that both countries have been very committed to R and their output is quite efficient.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
China, India, and Asia

35. International Integration and Regional Development in China

Author:
Thomas Gries and Margarete Redlin
Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Concerns about the duration of China's growth and hence the question of a permanent significant contribution of China to world economic growth relate, amongst other things, to the problem of reducing regional disparity in China. While China's high average growth is driven by a small number of rapidly developing provinces, the majority of provinces have experienced more moderate development. To obtain broad continous growth it is important to identify the determinants of provincial growth. Therefore, we introduce a stylized model of regional development which is characterized by two pillars: (i) International integration indicated by FDI and/or trade lead to imitation of international technologies, technology spill overs and temporary dynamic scale economies, and (ii) domestic factors indicated by human and real capital available through interregional factor mobility. Using panel data analysis and GMM estimates our empirical analysis supports the predictions from our theoretical model of regional development. Positive and significant coefficients for FDI and trade support the importance of international integration and technology imitation. A negative and significant lagged GDP per capita indicates a catching up, non steady state process across China's provinces. Highly significant human and real capital identifies the importance of these domestic growth restricting factors. However, other potentially important factors like labor or government expenditures are (surprisingly) insignificant or even negative. Further, in contrast to implications from NEG models indicators for urbanization and agglomeration do not contribute significantly.
Topic:
Development
Political Geography:
China and Asia

36. Measuring the Competitive Threat from China

Author:
Rhys Jenkins
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
In recent years there has been a growing literature that analyses the threat which Chinese exports pose to the exports of other developing countries. The paper provides a critique of the standard measures of export similarity which have been used to estimate the threat from China in these studies. Two alternative indices, the static and the dynamic index of competitive threat, are developed and estimated for 18 developing countries and compared with estimates for the standard measures. It is shown that the latter tend to underestimate the extent to which countries are threatened by China. They also distort both the rankings of countries according to the extent to which they face competition from China and the direction of change in the competitive threat over time.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China and Asia

37. Measuring Vulnerability and Poverty: Estimates for Rural India

Author:
Raghav Gaiha and Katsushi Imai
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper measures the vulnerability of households in rural India, based upon the ICRISAT panel survey. We employ both ex ante and ex post measures of vulnerability. The latter are decomposed into aggregate and idiosyncratic risks and poverty components. Our decomposition shows that idiosyncratic risks account for the largest share, followed by poverty and aggregate risks. Despite some degree of risk-sharing, the landless or small farmers are vulnerable to idiosyncratic risks, forcing them to reduce consumption. Income-augmenting policies therefore must be combined with those that not only reduce aggregate and idiosyncratic risks but also build resilience against them.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, Economics, and Poverty
Political Geography:
India and Asia

38. Ownership Reform, Foreign Competition, and Efficiency of Chinese Commercial Banks: A Non-Parametric Approach

Author:
Shujie Yao, Zhongwei Han, and Genfu Feng
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Since China joined the WTO in 2001, the pressure for bank reforms has mounted as China ought to fully open up its financial market to foreign competition by 2006. Efficiency is key for domestic banks to survive in a liberalised environment, but it appears that the last hope for raising bank efficiency is through ownership reform. Whether ownership reform and foreign competition can solve China's banking problem remains to be tested. This paper aims to answer this question through using a non-parametric approach to analyse the efficiency changes of 15 large commercial banks during 1998-2005. We find that ownership reform and foreign competition have forced the Chinese commercial banks to improve performance, as their total factor productivity rose by 5.6 per cent per annum. This coincides with the recent bullish Chinese stock markets led by three listed state-owned commercial banks. Despite such encouraging results, we remain cautious about the future of the Chinese banks, as the good results may have been artificially created with massive government support and the fundamentals of the banks may be still weak.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China and Asia

39. The Rise of the Southern Economies: Implications for the WTO-Multilateral Trading System

Author:
Silvia Nenci
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The rise of the emerging southern economies – China, India, Brazil, and South Africa (CIBS) – as both economic and political actors, is having significant and far-reaching impact on the world economy. Notwithstanding the increasing amount of study and research, there are still important knowledge-gaps with respect to a range of likely consequences of the dynamism of the Southern Economies. One of these gaps concerns the implications for the WTO-multilateral trading system. The present paper proposes a review of the southern participation in the multilateral integration process and suggests a methodology to assess the impact of CIBS' rise on the future of the WTO system. Through the analysis of the trajectories of 'impact' of the trade channel, the paper draws some suggestive remarks.
Topic:
International Organization and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Africa, China, India, Asia, South Africa, Brazil, and South America

40. The Role of Women's Empowerment and Domestic Violence in Child Growth and Undernutrition in a Tribal and Rural Community in South India

Author:
Kavita Sethuraman
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Moderate undernutrition continues to affect 46 per cent of children under 5 years of age and 47 per cent of rural women in India. Women's lack of empowerment is believed to be an important factor in the persistent prevalence of undernutrition. In India, women's empowerment often varies by community, with tribes sometimes being the most progressive. This paper explores the relationship between women's empowerment, domestic violence, maternal nutritional status, and the nutritional status and growth over six months in children aged 6 to 24 months in a rural and tribal community. This longitudinal observational study undertaken in rural Karnataka, India included tribal and rural subjects. Structured interviews with mothers were conducted and anthropometric measurements were obtained for 820 mother-child pairs, the follow-up rate after 6 months was 82 per cent. The data were analyzed by multivariate regression. Some degree of undernutrition was seen in 83.5 per cent of children and 72.4 per cent of mothers in the sample, moreover the prevalence of undernutrition increased among children at follow up. Domestic violence was experienced by 34 per cent of mothers in the sample. In multivariate analysis, biological variables explained most of the variance in nutritional status and child growth, followed by health-care seeking and women's empowerment variables; socio-economic variables explained the least variance. Women's empowerment variables were significantly associated with child nutrition on enrolment and child growth at follow-up. At follow-up, mother's prior lifetime experience of physical violence significantly undermined child growth in terms of weight-for-age, and older age at marriage and high mobility of mothers predicted less stunting in their children. In addition to the known investments needed to reduce undernutrition, improving women's nutrition, promoting gender equality, empowering women, and ending violence against women could further reduce the prevalence of undernutrition in this segment of the Indian population.
Topic:
Gender Issues and Health
Political Geography:
India and Asia