Productivity growth of US states

This dissertation makes a contribution to regional studies by constructing Multi-Factor Productivity (MFP) growth measures at the state level for the US. The first essay of the dissertation exploits a dual growth accounting technique to calculate sector-specific MFP growth for all US states from 1980 onwards. In the process, the essay contributes by constructing a data set on the state level real user cost of capital paying particular attention to inter-state variations in the composition of output, relative prices of investment goods, effective corporate taxes, and inflation rates for the manufacturing and service sectors. Some of the key implications of our analysis are: a) The contribution of MFP growth in driving labor productivity is higher in the manufacturing sector compared to the service sector; b) The source of divergence between the primal and dual measures of MFP growth originates from inconsistencies between the constructed real user cost and the implied real user cost of Bureau of Economic Analysis; c) The real user cost for the service sector demonstrates negative growth rate resulting from a rapid decline in the relative price ratio of investment goods providing support for Investment Specific Technological Change and also implying high rates of capital accumulation; d) The average growth in the real user cost of capital is non-zero and shows wide variability across states for both the sectors. The primary focus of the second essay is to capture the positive impacts of schooling and Research and Development (R&D) expenditure on MFP growth for US states. While the evidence for positive externalities from schooling has been disappointing in the regional literature, the evidence of externalities from R&D is seldom found at the state level in US. The essay argues that a state with higher level of education not only creates better ideas, but also is more favorable to adopt, implement and execute the newly available ideas and hence, to absorb the knowledge spillovers. Further, it is argued that the states with favorable R&D policies attract more efficient firms and hence, experience higher MFP growth. To achieve this, the essay extends the dual accounting exercise to construct MFP growth measures for the non-farm, non-mining, private sector for all US states and successfully establishes the superiority of the dual measures. The empirical exercise documents significant positive externalities from schooling and R&D only after controlling the catch-up effect where poor states converge towards the rich states and attributes an important role to schooling and R&D in speeding up this process

Productivity Growth in Goods and Services across US States: What can We Learn from Factor Prices?

This paper exploits the dual accounting technique to uncover multi-factor productivity growth patterns for goods and services across US states from 1980 to 2007. Due to changes in sectoral classifications, the period is divided into two parts, 1980-1997 and 1998-2007. Over both periods, states exhibit a wide range of productivity growth rates with the goods sector showing much larger variations. The variations are larger for the second time period with some states recording productivity growth as high as almost nine percent annually while other states showing declines at more than two percent. Underlying the wide variation in productivity growth are variations in both wage growth and real user cost growth. Since 1998, the real user cost declines at almost two per cent annually. Incorporating human capital into the analysis makes wage growth and, hence, productivity growth lower in both sectors, and on average negative in the second period. Scaling up the analysis to the national level, we also find that there are large differences between the growth rates of primal based measures of marginal product of capital and our calculations of real user cost growth. This can only be partially explained by the anomalous behavior of particular industries such as mining and real estate services, and to some degree due to the declining relative price of investment goods.

Key Players and Key Groups in Teams

Using data for 2008-2009, we determine winning strategies for the game in two different formats: 50-over one-day internationals and 20-over games from the Indian Premier League and Twenty20 Internationals. We find that attacking batting and defensive bowling outperform all other strate- gies in determining the probability of winning in both formats despite the thirty over difference between them. Moreover, in both versions of the game, good elding turns out to be an important complement to these two strategies. We speculate that this will have implications for the future of cricket, especially for the popularity of formats and the composition of teams.

Clinical outcomes in management of dislocation of carpometacarpal joints of hand: a rare orthopaedic presentation

Background: Dislocation of carpo-metacarpal (CMC) joints especially involving the 2nd and 3rd or paired dislocations, presents a rare pattern of orthopaedics hand injuries. They are associated with high energy trauma usually involving motorbike accidents. Severe soft tissue inflammation over the affected hand and associated injuries often makes detection of these fractures difficult. They require prompt management at presentation. Failure to be diagnosed and treated at early stage leads to joint stiffness, restrictions of wrist movement, deformity and sometimes ruptures of tendons crossing the wrist. Most of them require open reduction and internal fixation for stabilization. The objective of the study was to clinically evaluate outcomes in management of carpometacarpal joint dislocations.Methods: We prospectively studied 6 cases of CMC dislocation presenting at average of 1week from the original injury. All were clinically and radiologically evaluated. 3 cases were managed with open reduction and internal fixation with K wire and 1with closed manipulation and percutaneous k wire fixation and 1 case by arthrodesis of CMC joint. Functional assessment was done with Quick DASH score at 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months and 1 year.Results: All the patients went on to have good functional recovery. The average quick DASH score showed improvement from 77.39 to 4.07 over 1 year follow-up. Conclusions: Careful and meticulous examinations of hands are necessary in high velocity trauma cases to avoid missing diagnosis of CMC dislocation. ORIF remains the gold standard treatment which can also be used for cases presenting late, followed by aggressive post-op physiotherapy can lead to excellent recovery of hand function

Socioeconomic Gradients in Early Childhood Health: Evidence from Bangladesh and Nepal

Background: A large literature has developed researching the origins of socioeconomic gradients in child health in developed countries. Particularly, this research examines the age at which these gradient effects emerge and how they change across different stages of childhood. However, similar research on developing countries is limited. Methods: This paper examines the socioeconomic gradients in early childhood health in two developing countries, Bangladesh and Nepal using the 2011 Demographic and Health Surveys. The paper separately studies two measures of household socioeconomic status: household wealth and maternal educational attainment. Two anthropometric measures of early childhood health, height-for-age and weight-for-age Z scores for 0–59 months of children, are used for our empirical exercise. The paper uses both non-parametric and multivariate ordinary least squares approaches to examine at what age socioeconomic disparities in health emerge, and investigates if these disparities increase with age in early childhood. Results: The paper provides significant evidence of age-specific socioeconomic gradients in early childhood health in both countries. Health disparities in household wealth exist in both countries. This disparity emerges in the first 11 months of life, and is particularly severe for children from the poorest quintile. On the other hand, while the emergence of maternal education gradients during the first 11 months is sensitive to the choice of childhood health measure, the study finds the children of mothers with higher education to enjoy significantly higher health outcomes in comparison to those with lower education. However, controlling for father’s education weakens the effects of maternal education on child health in both countries. Further, the paper does not find statistically significant evidence where socioeconomic gradients in health increase with age in early childhood. Conclusions: Our study concludes that socioeconomic disparities in health outcomes exist even in very early childhood in Bangladesh and Nepal. This has important implications for targeted policy interventions in the form of food security and nutrition supplement programs, free provision of health care, and maternal education in both countries

Corruption and assortative matching of partners in international trade

Although the effects of corruption on bilateral trade are well-documented, its impact on the composition of trading partners remains unexplored. In this paper, we argue that corruption in a country imposes asymmetric costs on its trading partners depending on their characteristics. Consequently, as the level of corruption in a country changes, its trade flows from some of its trading partners change more than others, depending on their characteristics, changing the composition of its trading partners. We focus on two characteristics of trading partners: (1) the level of corruption and (2) membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (OECD Convention). Using the gravity model, we find evidence of a negative assortative matching in international trade with respect to corruption. We find that corruption in a country is negatively associated with trade flows from high-corrupt countries and is positively associated with trade volume from signatories of the OECD convention. Our results suggest that future studies on this topic should consider controlling for institutional dissimilarities between the trading partners as it has implications for bilateral trade costs

Corruption and Assortative Matching of Partners in International Trade

Although the effects of corruption on bilateral trade are well-documented, its impact on the composition of trading partners remains unexplored. In this paper, we argue that corruption in a country imposes asymmetric costs on its trading partners depending on their characteristics. Consequently, as the level of corruption in a country changes, its trade flows from some of its trading partners change more than others, depending on their characteristics, changing the composition of its trading partners. We focus on two characteristics of trading partners: (1) the level of corruption and (2) membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (OECD Convention). Using the gravity model, we find evidence of a negative assortative matching in international trade with respect to corruption. We find that corruption in a country is negatively associated with trade flows from high-corrupt countries and is positively associated with trade volume from signatories of the OECD convention. Our results suggest that future studies on this topic should consider controlling for institutional dissimilarities between the trading partners as it has implications for bilateral trade costs

Convergence Analysis of Social Sector Expenditure and its Components: Evidence from the Indian States

This paper examines the convergence of public expenditure and its major components using sub-national data from India. By employing the panel club convergence test, the paper finds convergence in per capita public expenditure across Indian states implying that distribution policies of public expenditure are effective and fair across the states. Subsequently, the convergence of per capita total social sector expenditure and its major components are studied. The results support the evidence of convergence for total social sector expenditures and in the case of its components, we find that six of the nine components display regional convergence. Three components, namely, per capita education, sports, art and culture expenditure; per capita social security and welfare expenditure; and per capita rural development expenditure display the evidence of divergence and the presence of multiple transition paths. From the policy perspective, these three components of social expenditures need greater attention by the state governments as these expenditures are important for social cohesion, sustainable development, and achieving millennium development goals. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group