Impact of immigrants on the foreign trade of the UK

Much of the recent discussion on the impact of immigrants on the host economies relate to the costs they impose on the host country’s public finances and the labour market rather than their contribution to the growth of incomes, technology and trade. This paper analyses the contribution of immigrants into the UK to the exports of the country. The analysis suggests that immigrants make a significant contribution to the growth of exports of services from the UK. Exports of services account for more than a third of UK’s exports and the immigrants. The statistical analysis suggests that Whilst both the immigrants from the EU contribute to the growth of exports of services from the country the contribution of the immigrants from the Commonwealth is somewhat more than that of the EU immigrants mostly because of the recognised presence of the Commonwealth immigrants in professional and technical occupations in the services sector

Finance and growth: Evidence from South Asia

The article examines the empirical relationship between financial development and economic growth for five South Asian countries over the time period 1990–2015, using both panel model approach and time series analysis. We employ multiple proxies for financial development, namely, foreign direct investment, total debt service, gross domestic savings, domestic credit to private sector by banks, and domestic credit provided by financial sector to test the relationship. The panel model approach results indicate that there is an overall positive association between finance and growth for South Asia through the FDI and savings channels. The country-specific analyses suggest that the growth effects of financial channels are most pronounced in Sri Lanka, whereas, on the other hand, financial development plays no role in the Indian growth process in the short run. Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan lie somewhere in between this spectrum with every country exhibiting unique growth paths which highlights the heterogeneity of the region.N/

The Indian film industry in a changing international market

India has a longstanding reputation for its acclaimed film industry and continues to be by far the world’s largest producer of films. Nevertheless, domestic demand for films appears to be waning as in a number of developed countries with mature film industries. Hence, the econometric analysis in this paper is particularly timely as with demand for films in Indian cinemas falling it is important to identify those factors that make films appealing for Indian audiences. An original dataset is utilised that includes data on all Bollywood films released in India between 2011 and 2015. Account is taken of the potential endogeneity between variables through the use of the Generalised Method of Moments approach. Results are used to demonstrate how the Indian film market can continue to have a significant positive impact on the Indian economy. The discussion highlights appropriate film production company strategies and Government policy responses that should be considered to ensure the continued success of the Indian film industry both domestically and in an increasingly competitive international market

Manufacturing and Trade Liberalisation of India: Continuing the Debate

The paper attempts to identify the reasons behind the differential performance of the registered and unregistered manufacturing sectors of India during the post-reform period. The motivation for this study comes from the econometric results of Ghosh Dastidar and Veeramani (2014) who find that trade liberalisation has positively affected the unregistered sector growth performance but not that of the registered segment. Besides discussing the probable reasons behind the absence of a trade-growth nexus in the case of the registered sector, the paper reviews the theoretical literature on the unregistered sector - trade liberalisation association with an aim to identify the channels through which trade liberalisation might have affected the performance of the unregistered segment. It seems that trade liberalisation benefitted the unregistered sector indirectly through the increase in sub-contracting activities from the registered sector. Absence of rigid labour regulations also helped the unregistered sector undergo restructuring during the post-reform period and achieve faster growth through elimination of inefficient firms, something which the registered segment failed to do

Holidays and economic growth: Evidence from a panel of Indian states

The number of holidays differs significantly across Indian states. Moreover, some of the governing political parties have been accused of using holidays as a tool either to mollify disgruntled workers or to woo voters before the state elections. In this context, this paper explores the relationship between the number of holidays and economic growth across 24 Indian states, spanning the period 2008–2016, by employing a panel model analysis. The paper presents evidence suggesting that holidays seem to affect growth negatively in the rich states but are inconsequential for the growth performance of the poor states.N/

The relationship between public education expenditure and economic growth: The case of India

The paper reviews the theoretical and the empirical case for public investment in education in India. Though the theoretical literature provides a backing for such a policy, the empirical literature fails to find a robust relation between education expenditure and growth. Expenditure on education is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for growth. It seems that the effectiveness of education expenditure depends on the institutional and labour market characteristics of the economy. The effectiveness of education investments also depends on other factors such as trade openness. Due to these aforesaid factors, we argue that the empirical relation between education expenditure and growth for India has been inconsistent