Trade and Social Development: The case of Asia

Much of the cause of inequality in Asia results from lack of inability to absorb predominantly rural based population into urban centric manufacturing and services sector.This paper examines the income inequality, the case with China and India and examine the relationship between trade and social development index.Trade, Socail Development, Asia

The rich keep getting richer in India! Says who?

This paper considers the dynamics of income distributional pattern in India. If reforms are pro-rich then would see emergence of twin peaks in the underlying income distribution function in India (i.e.clustering of the rich people, and clustering of the poor people). On the other hand, a uniform growth process at a pan-India level will lead to the disappearance of any such clusters.Income distribution, India, economic reform, equity

Debashis Chakraborty & Jaydeep Mukherjee (Eds.), Trade, Investment and Economic Development in Asia: Empirical and Policy Issues

Book Revie

The Formation of Supermassive Black Holes from Population III.1 Seeds. I. Cosmic Formation Histories and Clustering Properties

We calculate cosmic distributions in space and time of the formation sites of the first, "Pop III.1" stars, exploring a model in which these are the progenitors of all supermassive black holes (SMBHs), seen in the centers of most large galaxies. Pop III.1 stars are defined to form from primordial composition gas in dark matter minihalos with $\sim10^6\:M_\odot$ that are isolated from neighboring astrophysical sources by a given isolation distance, $d_{\rm{iso}}$. We assume Pop III.1 sources are seeds of SMBHs, based on protostellar support by dark matter annihilation heating that allows them to accrete a large fraction of their minihalo gas, i.e., $\sim10^5\:M_\odot$. Exploring $d_{\rm{iso}}$ from $10 - 100\:\rm{kpc}$ (proper distances), we predict the redshift evolution of Pop III.1 source and SMBH remnant number densities. The local, $z=0$ density of SMBHs constrains $d_{\rm{iso}}\lesssim 100\:\rm{kpc}$ (i.e., $3\:\rm{Mpc}$ comoving distance at $z\simeq30$). In our simulated ($\sim60\:\rm{Mpc}$)$^3$ comoving volume, Pop III.1 stars start forming just after $z=40$. Their formation is largely complete by $z\simeq25$ to $20$ for $d_{\rm{iso}}=100$ to $50\:\rm{kpc}$. We follow source evolution to $z=10$, by which point most SMBHs reside in halos with $\gtrsim10^8\:M_\odot$. Over this period, there is relatively limited merging of SMBHs for these values of $d_{\rm{iso}}$. We also predict SMBH clustering properties at $z=10$: feedback suppression of neighboring sources leads to relatively flat angular correlation functions.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, MNRAS accepte

Farmer suicides in India and the weather god

This paper examines the reasons for farmer suicides in India. Inability to get the right price, crop failures, and insurmountable debt are the factors that may drive the farmers to take this extreme step. A key factor for farmers being unable to get market prices is inefficient agriculture supply chain management. We find that the reasons for inefficient supply chain management include lack of reforms in the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act, low bargaining power due to small farm size, and lack of warehousing facilities. Crop failures happen because of poor irrigation facilities. Considering agricultural output and rainfall data from four different states in India we find evidence in favor of association between the cyclical component of agricultural output and rainfall data. Understanding this linkage is important from the perspective of formulating demand management policies (read, intervention by the government and central bank)