Decomposition of Changes in Poverty Measures: Sectoral and Institutional Considerations for the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper of Pakistan

Two extremely significant empirical questions on the relationship between growth, distribution and poverty have remained the focus of attention for researchers and academicians. First, how does a change in aggregate poverty reflect intrasectoral gains/losses versus intersectoral shifts in population? Second, how much of an observed change in poverty can be attributed to the changes in the distribution of income, as distinct from growth in average incomes? Standard inequality measures like the Gini coefficient can be misleading in this context. At any rate, the change in an inequality measure can be a poor guide to its quantitative impact on poverty. Ravallion and Huppi (1991) proposed decomposition formulae to throw light on the contributions of sectoral gains and population shifts (on the one hand) and economic growth and changes in inequality (on the other) to aggregate changes in poverty. They found that both population shifts and gains to the urban and rural sectors alleviated aggregate poverty in Indonesia over the 1984–87 period. In addition, they obtained estimates of the relative contributions of growth and greater equity to poverty alleviation in Indonesia. Datt and Ravallion (1992) extended the analysis to study poverty in Brazil and India during the 1980s. Kakwani (1993) explored the relation between economic growth and poverty for Cote d’Ivoire from 1980–85. He developed his own methodology to measure separately the impact of changes in average income and income inequality on poverty. Kakwani (2000) applied the same methodology to analyse changes in poverty in Thailand covering the period from 1988–94. Recently, Contreas (2003) examined the evolution of poverty and inequality in Chile between 1990 and 1996. Using the “Datt-Ravallion decomposition”, he computed that economic growth accounted for over 85 percent of the poverty reduction in Chile.

Chiral Perturbation Theory and Finite Size Effects on the Nucleon Mass in unquenched QCD

We calculate finite size effects on nucleon masses in chiral perturbation theory. We confront the theoretical predictions with N_f=2 lattice results and discuss chiral extrapolation formulae.Comment: talk at Lattice 03 (spectrum), 3 pages latex, 3 figures. Assignment of 2 data points to incorrect data sets in plot 1 and of 1 data point in plot 2 corrected. 1 fm lattice result updated. Conclusions unchange

Tuberculosis control in Sindh, Pakistan: Critical analysis of its implementation

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the main health problems despite preventive and control measures that have been taken in the past few decades. It is responsible for almost 8.8 million cases and 1.4 million deaths around the world. Lack of access to TB services is a barrier for empowering TB patients. In a country like Pakistan, controlling TB has become a challenge because of the lack of private sector involvement in a National Tuberculosis Control Program (NTP). Therefore, collaboration is needed between public, private and government sectors in treating TB as well as in improving the quality of the health care system

The Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with staggered fermions

We investigate the neighbourhood of the chiral phase transition in a lattice Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model, using both Monte Carlo methods and lattice Schwinger-Dyson equations.Comment: Talks at LAT93, Dallas, U.S.A. Postscript file, 6 pages, figures include

Electric Power Generation from Solar Photovoltaic Technology: Is It Marketable in Pakistan?

Solar photovoltaic systems are prohibitively expensive in terms of installation costs. Power from them is also available intermittently—only when energy from the sun is available. On the other hand, PV systems are free of the ever-rising costs of input fuel. They also incur much less operation and maintenance costs and are supposed to have a longer lifetime than, for example, a fossil fuel power plant. Thus using solar-PV power looks uneconomical in the short term, but may be profitable in the long term. It is, therefore, interesting to identify the factors that can make investment in solar PV power generation acceptable. This paper carries out a financial analysis of installing a 10 MW solar photovoltaic power generation plant for sale of electricity to a grid. It compares the levelised cost of this mode of energy generation as compared to a fossil fuel plant. It also calculates the cost of electricity generation and tariff for power from this plant. It then identifies the factors that can make the investment in a grid-scale solar PV plant more favourable than investment in other conventional and non-renewable sources.Solar Energy

Financial Sector Reform and Its Impact on Investment and Economic Growth: An Econometric Approach

The financial sector is central to economic development as it serves the role of intermediary by mobilising savings and subsequently allocating credit for productive activities. However, in many developing countries including Pakistan, administered interest rate, domestic credit controls, high reserve requirements, use of captive banking system to finance large budgetary requirements of the government and controls on international capital inflows have remained the main features of the monetary policy. These repressive policies had their repercussions in the form of excess liquidity with the banking system, disintermediation of cash flows, segmentation of financial markets, underdeveloped money and capital markets, etc. [McKinnon (1973) and Shaw (1973)], therefore, argued that low interest rate ceilings unduly restrict the real flow of loanable funds, thus depressing the quantity of productive investment. Financial liberalisation, on the other hand, is defined as policy measures designed to deregulate certain operations of the financial system and transform its structure with a view to achieving a liberalised market oriented system with an appropriate regulatory framework. The financial sector reforms would lead to increase in loanable funds by attracting more household savings to bank deposits due to higher interest rates. This, in turn, would result in greater investment and faster economic growth.

Investigation of electrical properties for cantilever-based piezoelectric energy harvester

In the present era, the renewable sources of energy, e.g., piezoelectric materials are in great demand. They play a vital role in the field of micro-electromechanical systems, e.g., sensors and actuators. The cantilever-based piezoelectric energy harvesters are very popular because of their high performance and utilization. In this research-work, an energy harvester model based on a cantilever beam with bimorph PZT-5A, having a substrate layer of structural steel, was presented. The proposed energy scavenging system, designed in COMSOL Multiphysics, was applied to analyze the electrical output as a function of excitation frequencies, load resistances and accelerations. Analytical modeling was employed to measure the output voltage and power under pre-defined conditions of acceleration and load resistance. Experimentation was also performed to determine the relationship between independent and output parameters. Energy harvester is capable of producing the maximum power of 1.16 mW at a resonant frequency of 71 Hz under 1g acceleration, having load resistance of 12 k Omega. It was observed that acceleration and output power are directly proportional to each other. Moreover, the investigation conveys that the experimental results are in good agreement with the numerical results. The maximum error obtained between the experimental and numerical investigation was found to equal 4.3%

Decomposition of Changes in Poverty Measures: Sectoral and Institutional Considerations for the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper of Pakistan

Two extremely significant empirical questions on the relationship between growth, distribution and poverty have remained the focus of attention for researchers and academicians. First, how does a change in aggregate poverty reflect intrasectoral gains/losses versus intersectoral shifts in population? Second, how much of an observed change in poverty can be attributed to the changes in the distribution of income, as distinct from growth in average incomes? Standard inequality measures like the Gini coefficient can be misleading in this context. At any rate, the change in an inequality measure can be a poor guide to its quantitative impact on poverty. Ravallion and Huppi (1991) proposed decomposition formulae to throw light on the contributions of sectoral gains and population shifts (on the one hand) and economic growth and changes in inequality (on the other) to aggregate changes in poverty. They found that both population shifts and gains to the urban and rural sectors alleviated aggregate poverty in Indonesia over the 1984-87 period. In addition, they obtained estimates of the relative contributions of growth and greater equity to poverty alleviation in Indonesia. Datt and Ravallion (1992) extended the analysis to study poverty in Brazil and India during the 1980s. Kakwani (1993) explored the relation between economic growth and poverty for Cote d’Ivoire from 1980-85. He developed his own methodology to measure separately the impact of changes in average income and income inequality on poverty. Kakwani (2000) applied the same methodology to analyse changes in poverty in Thailand covering the period from 1988-94. Recently, Contreas (2003) examined the evolution of poverty and inequality in Chile between 1990 and 1996. Using the “Datt-Ravallion decomposition”, he computed that economic growth accounted for over 85 percent of the poverty reduction in Chile

Callus induction via different growth regulators from cotyledon explants of indigenous chick pea (Cicer arietinum L.) cultivars KK-1 and Hassan-2K

Callus induction from cotyledon explants was studied in indigenous chick pea (Cicer arietinum L.) cultivars KK-1 and Hassan-2K on MS and B5 media containing different combinations and concentrations of growth regulators. Different MS and B5 callusing media containing varying level of 2, 4-D (2 and 4 mg/l), NAA (0.50 and 1 mg/l), BAP (5 and 10 μM) and their combinations were tested for callus induction response. Percent callus and callus fresh weight (g) were recorded after two and four weeks of culture for both genotypes. For KK-1 cultivar, the maximum callus frequency (71 and 97%) followed by (65 and 96%) were observed on 4 mg/l 2,4-D+5 μM BAP in MS and 4 mg/l 2,4-D in B5 media, respectively after two and four weeks of culture. Similarly, the highest callus fresh weight (0.411 and 0.787 g) were also recorded for MS+4 mg/l 2,4-D+5 μM BAP in contrast to B5 where the highest callus weight (0.401 and 0.693 g) was achieved on 4 mg/l 2,4-D only. In Hassan -2K, the highest callus % (68 and 96) and fresh weight (0.572 and 0.821 g) were recorded on MS+4 mg/l 2,4-D+0.50 mg/l NAA after two and four weeks of culture, respectively. In B5 medium, 2,4-D+BAP combination produced average callus induction response for both cultivars.Key words: Callus induction, chick pea cotyledons, growth regulators