Technical Change, Technical Efficiency, and Their Impact on Input Demand in the Agricultural and Manufacturing Sectors of Pakistan

Technical change has been considered as one of the most important determinants of economic growth. In developed economies, a proportionately higher percentage of GDP growth is attributable to technological progress and technical efficiency. However, technical change in developing countries is in its early stages and increased use of factor inputs is still the dominant source of economic growth. An attempt has been made in this paper to analyse technological progress and technical efficiency and their contribution to economic growth along with other factors of production by using more efficient methods in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors of Pakistan. There are a few studies on technological growth and technical efficiency change in Pakistan but they suffer from certain limitations. Most of them use the terms of technical change and productivity synonymously. Further, all of them use Hicks’s formula of neutral technical change and assume that technical change is happening at a constant rate. We have attempted to measure technical change, technical efficiency, and productivity in the form of the Hicks neutral technical change as well as in the form of variable and continuous and discrete technical change. Besides, this paper also analyses the impact of technical change on input demand (i.e., its impact on labour and capital demand) and examines the issue of technical change being either labour-saving or capital-saving. We found that technical change was taking place at a continuous and variable rate. The major contributor to the growth of output and value-added in both sectors was capital, contributing over 50 percent. Labour share was about 20 percent in the agriculture sector and about 10 percent in the manufacturing sector. Technical change share was very significant in manufacturing but not so in agriculture. The manufacturing sector in Pakistan has grown at an annual rate of about 6 percent during 1970s and at 8.7 percent during 1980s, and its share in GDP has increased from 16.5 percent to about 19 percent, but it has failed to generate new employment opportunities for the labour force. The employment growth rate is only about 2 percent.

Economically Active Children and Home-care Children: How Much They Differ

Over the issue of the difference or otherwise between economically active children and home-care children, there are two competing claims by researchers. One holds that economically active children and home- care children are the same in that both groups of children have identical determinants, while the other contradicts this view. Using the probit analysis for both groups of children in Pakistan, our study compares the determinants of the two groups to check whether they have same determining factors and ultimately are the same or they differ with each other in this matter. It is found that a significant number of explanatory variables have shown opposite effect on economic activity of children and home-care activity of children. So it is concluded that economically active children and home-care children are two different groups which cannot be merged into each other. However, policies focused on elimination of economically active children trickle down the effect to home-care children as some determining factors of both groups are the same.Child labor, Human Capital, Children, Pakistan

Performance Evaluation and Prediction of 2-D Markovian and Bursty Multi-Traffic Queues. Analytical Solution for 2-D Markovian and Bursty Multi-Traffic Non Priority, Priority and Hand Off Calling Schemes.

Queueing theory is the mathematical study of queues or waiting lines, which are formed whenever demand for service exceeds the capacity to provide service. A queueing system is composed of customers, packets or calls that need some kind of service. These entities arrive at queueing system, join a queue if service is not immediately available and leave system after receiving service. There are also cases when customers, packets or calls leave system without joining queue or drop out without receiving service even after waiting for some time. Queueing network models with finite capacity have facilitated the analysis of discrete flow systems, such as computer systems, transportation networks, manufacturing systems and telecommunication networks, by providing powerful and realistic tools for performance evaluation and prediction. In wireless cellular systems mobility is the most important feature and continuous service is achieved by supporting handoff from one cell to another. Hand off is the process of changing channel associated with the current connection while a call is in progress. A handoff is required when a mobile terminal moves from one cell to another or the signal quality deteriorates in current cell. Since neighbouring cells use disjoint subset of frequency bands therefore negotiation must take place between mobile terminal, the current base station and next potential base station. A poorly designed handoff scheme significantly decreases quality of service (QOS). Different schemes have been devised and in these schemes handoff calls are prioritize. Also most of the performance evaluation techniques consider the case where the arrival process is poisson and service is exponential i.e. there is single arrival and single departure. Whereas in practice there is burstiness in cellular traffic i.e. there can be bulk arrivals and bulk departures. Other issue is that, assumptions made by stochastic process models are not satisfied. Most of the effort is concentrated on providing different interpretations of M/M queues rather than attempting to provide a new methodology. In this thesis performance evaluation of multi traffic cellular models i.e. non priority, priority and hand off calling scheme for bursty traffic are devised. Moreover extensions are carried out towards the analysis of a multi-traffic M/M queueing system and state probabilities are calculated analytically

High frequency inverter-transformer-cycloconverter system for DC to AC (3-phase) power conversion

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis is concerned with a 3-phase multistage high frequency link DC to AC power conversion with a novel inverter-cycloconverter circuitry. The conversion system is composed of a high frequency PWM inverter, step-up high frequency transformer and cycloconverter with bidirectional switching devices. In first stage the DC voltage of the power source , say a submarine battery, is inverted to a system of 3-phase sinusoidally modulated I kHz alternative wave forms. For this purpose a suggested optimized PWM technique for 3-phase inverter operation is adopted, in which harmonic components up to 17 th ( 17 kHz) are eliminated from the inverter output voltages. In the second stage, for DC input isolation from AC output and also for a voltage transformation ( here stepping-up )a high frequency ( size reduced ) transformer is employed. Generalized high frequency operation, influence and side effects of the transformer on overall system design & performance is investigated. In the final stage the 1 kHz -to- 50 Hz conversion process is accomplished by a 3-phase cycloconverter. The proposed "nonlinear modulation strategy" for cycloconverter output voltage and associated harmonic analysis is demonstrated, in which the harmonic components up to 38th (1.9 kHz ) are eliminated from the conversion system output voltage. To assess the suggested functioning principles for the inverter & cycloconverter , the prototype conversion system was developed. Some design criteria and switching device selection are presented, together with different voltage & current wave forms of the prototype system under resistive & inductive load (induction motor) and their respective spectra

Productivity Constraints of Cholistani Farmers

This paper examines the factors behind low crop yield in Cholistan. Both the quantitative and qualitative analysis show how the low levels of agricultural productivity in this area may be linked to material and climatic factors. The quantitative analysis is mainly focused on physical factors. The qualitative analysis, however, emphasises that relative inefficiency of agricultural activity in Cholistan reflects the influence of physical, economic, social and, most importantly, climatic factors. The quantitative findings provide valuable insight into various ‘sources of productivity’ in terms of acreage effect, capital input effect and irrigation water availability effect. The size of the positive and significant coefficients on these variables suggest the extent to which one or the other variable effect is prominent in improving the crop yield. The qualitative analysis examines multiple interrelated factors which can be blamed on for relative inefficiency of Cholistani farmers. The hot climate of the area turns out to be the most critical variable in this analysis. Many specific technological drought-mitigating measures are proposed. However, for consistent policy formulation, a thorough study and quantitative evaluation of the potential and practicality of these measures in Cholistan is suggested.

Impact of Agricultural Modernization on Crude Birth Rate in Indian Punjab

Pooled cross-section and time-series data of 11 districts in the Indian Punjab have yielded three hypotheses: (1) High infant-mortality rates lead to high fertility rates and high fertility rates cause high infant-mortality rates; (2) Agricultural modernization affects fertility and infant-mortality; and (3) The direction and strength of the effects of agricultural modernization on fertility and infant-mortality depend upon the distribution of the benefits of such modernization