Estimating the Contribution of Infrastructure in Regional Productivity Growth in India

There does not seem to be a consensus on the importance of infrastructure investments in the process of economic development. With persistent regional disparities, and increasing regional identities, there is a need to determine the drivers of regional growth. Contribution of infrastructure to regional productivity growth is analyzed in this paper. Empirical analysis using data from 25 states in India for the past two decades suggests that composition of infrastructure investment is important in facilitating economic growth. Empirical results also highlight that investments in economic infrastructure have the closest linkage with regional productivity growth.

Agglomeration Economies and Productivity Growth in India

Agglomeration economies have been analyzed in the literature as drivers of economic growth, as these contribute to productivity enhancement. The primary objective of this paper is to ascertain the existence of agglomeration economies, and to examine the extent to which these have contributed to productivity growth in India. Two sources of agglomeration economies are distinguished – (i) at the industry level – localization economies of intra-industry linkage; and (ii) at the regional level – inter-industry urbanization economies. Growth accounting framework is used with agglomeration parameters included in the shift term of a general production function, coefficients of which are estimated through panel data regression. I employ state level data for 25 state economies in India for the period 1980-81 to 2006-07. There is evidence that urbanization economies tend to exist; however, there is considerable variation in the sources and magnitude of agglomeration economies across sectors. Results indicate that for service sector, the economies of urbanization exist on a lower level of urbanization, whereas for manufacturing, these economies are present at higher levels. Results support regional diversity more than localization, even if some differences can be seen across sectors.

Physics Potential of Long-Baseline Experiments

The discovery of neutrino mixing and oscillations over the past decade provides firm evidence for new physics beyond the Standard Model. Recently, theta13 has been determined to be moderately large, quite close to its previous upper bound. This represents a significant milestone in establishing the three-flavor oscillation picture of neutrinos. It has opened up exciting prospects for current and future long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments towards addressing the remaining fundamental questions, in particular the type of the neutrino mass hierarchy and the possible presence of a CP-violating phase. Another recent and crucial development is the indication of non-maximal 2-3 mixing angle, causing the octant ambiguity of theta23. In this paper, I will review the phenomenology of long-baseline neutrino oscillations with a special emphasis on sub-leading three-flavor effects, which will play a crucial role in resolving these unknowns. First, I will give a brief description of neutrino oscillation phenomenon. Then, I will discuss our present global understanding of the neutrino mass-mixing parameters and will identify the major unknowns in this sector. After that, I will present the physics reach of current generation long-baseline experiments. Finally, I will conclude with a discussion on the physics capabilities of accelerator-driven possible future long-baseline precision oscillation facilities.Comment: 44 pages, 37 pdf figures, 5 tables. Review article to appear in Advances in High Energy Physic

Exceptional Sensitivity to Neutrino Parameters with a Two Baseline Beta-Beam Set-up

We examine the reach of a Beta-beam experiment with two detectors at carefully chosen baselines for exploring neutrino mass parameters. Locating the source at CERN, the two detectors and baselines are: (a) a 50 kton iron calorimeter (ICAL) at a baseline of around 7150 km which is roughly the magic baseline, e.g., ICAL@INO, and (b) a 50 kton Totally Active Scintillator Detector at a distance of 730 km, e.g., at Gran Sasso. We choose 8B/8Li source ions with a boost factor \gamma of 650 for the magic baseline while for the closer detector we consider 18Ne/6He ions with a range of Lorentz boosts. We find that the locations of the two detectors complement each other leading to an exceptional high sensitivity. With \gamma=650 for 8B/8Li and \gamma=575 for 18Ne/6He and total luminosity corresponding to 5\times (1.1 \times 10^{18}) and 5\times (2.9\times 10^{18}) useful ion decays in neutrino and antineutrino modes respectively, we find that our two detector set-up can probe maximal CP violation and establish the neutrino mass ordering if \sin^22\theta_{13} is 1.4\times 10^{-4} and 2.7\times 10^{-4}, respectively, or more. The sensitivity reach for \sin^22\theta_{13} itself is 5.5 \times 10^{-4}. With a factor of 10 higher luminosity, the corresponding \sin^22\theta_{13} reach of this set-up would be 1.8\times 10^{-5}, 4.6\times 10^{-5} and 5.3\times 10^{-5} respectively for the above three performance indicators. CP violation can be discovered for 64% of the possible \delta_{CP} values for \sin^22\theta_{13} \geq 10^{-3} (\geq 8\times 10^{-5}), for the standard luminosity (10 times enhanced luminosity). Comparable physics performance can be achieved in a set-up where data from CERN to INO@ICAL is combined with that from CERN to the Boulby mine in United Kingdom, a baseline of 1050 km.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures, version to appear in Nucl.Phys.