Does the World Bank have any impact on human development of the poorest countries? Some preliminary evidence from Africa

In an attempt to better understand the impact of the World Bank on human development in poor countries, we use cross-country data on African countries, for the 1990-2002 period, to examine this relationship. The coefficient estimates of our parsimonious fixed-effects models indicate that while loans and grants of the Bank have had a positive impact on some relatively short-term indicators of health and education in an average African country, there is little evidence to suggest that such loans and grants have helped these countries to consolidate on the short-term gains.Development, Health, Education, World Bank, Africa

How Important is Ownership in a Market with Level Playing Field? The Indian Banking Sector Revisited

It has long been argued that private ownership of firms leads to better firm performance. However, theory as well as empirical evidence suggest that factors like agency problems may not allow privately owned firms to operate more efficiently or perform better that state owned firms. At the same time, it has been argued that competition and hard budget constraints can induce state owned firms to operate efficiently. In India, banking sector reforms were initiated in 1992-93, leading to entry and other forms of deregulation, and a level playing field for all banks. Data for 1995-96 through 2000-01 suggest that by 1999- 00 ownership was no longer a significant determinant of performance; induced by competition, public sector banks were able to eliminate the performance/efficiency gap that existed between them and domestic private sector and foreign banks.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39955/3/wp569.pd

The Risk Aversion of Banks in Emerging Credit markets: Evidence from India

Using bank-level data from India, for nine years (1995-96 to 2003-04), we examine banks’ behavior in the context of emerging credit markets. Our results indicate that the credit market behavior of banks in emerging markets is determined by past trends, the diversity of the potential pool of borrowers to whom a bank can lend, and regulations regarding treatment of NPA and lending restrictions imposed by the Reserve Bank of India. Finally, we find evidence that suggest that credit disbursal by banks can be facilitated by regulatory and institutional changes that help banks mitigate the problems associated with enforcement of debt covenants and treatment of NPA on the balance sheets. On the basis of these results, we speculate on some possible policy recommendations.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40160/3/wp774.pd

Impact of Derivatives Trading on Emerging Capital Markets: A Note on Expiration Day Effects in India

The impact of expiration of derivatives contracts on the underlying cash market ñ on trading volumes, returns and volatility of returns ñ has been studied in various contexts. We use an AR-GARCH model to analyse the impact of expiration of derivatives contracts on the cash market at the largest stock exchange in India, an important emerging capital market. Our results indicate that trading volumes were significantly higher on expiration days and during the five days leading up to expiration days (“expiration weeks”), compared with nonexpiration days (weeks). We also find significant expiration day effects on daily returns to the market index, and on the volatility of these returns. Finally, our analysis indicates that it might be prudent to undertake analysis of expiration day effects (or other events) using methodologies that model the underlying data generating process, rather than depend on comparison of mean and median alone.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57243/1/wp863 .pd

Enrollment Responses to Labour Market Conditions: A Study of the Canadian Market for Scientists and Engineers

As Canada increasingly structures itself towards a "knowledge based economy", the supply of high-skilled professionals such as engineers and other science graduates acquires more importance. Following the theoretical framework developed by Ryoo and Rosen(2004), we develop and estimate a dynamic supply and demand model for engineers and scientists in Canada. We find that the estimated stock-flow dynamics are supportive of the theoretical model. The relative employment of engineers is quite sensitive to research and development (R&D) expenditures as a fraction of GDP, particularly after 1997. We then use the estimates to develop a dynamic impulse response function. Looking at the impact of a permanent increase in allocation towards R&D, we find that the adjustment process is relatively smooth and the market adjusts in about 2 to 8 years (plus the four years of natural lag in production) to within 80% of the final steady state. For a one-time improvement in R&D allocation, we find that under rational expectations, there is an initial increase in the number of science graduates, but then it falls to below the steady state value and remains there for a long period as the initial increase works its way through the market.dynamic supply and demand, engineers and scientists, R & D expenditure, adjustment dynamics

“Family” ownership, tunneling and earnings management: A review of the literature

In this review article, we bring together a number of aspects of family firms that are ubiquitous in a number of institutional contexts, often as part of larger business groups. We pay particular attention to the mechanisms by which families retain control over firms, and the incentives of the families in control to expropriate other stakeholders by way of tunnelling. We examine the role of earnings management in facilitating tunnelling, and evidence about the incidence of earnings management in family firms. Our review suggests that while the literature on these aspects of family control is rich, the contexts in which the empirical exercises are undertaken are relatively few, and hence there is considerable opportunity to expand it to other contexts, in particular in the form of cross-country comparisons of the relative impact of agency conflicts and institutions on these issues.family control, group affiliation, agency problem, tunnelling, earnings management

The Leader as Catalyst: On Leadership and the Mechanics of Institutional Change

Individual leaders have been central to the transformation of organizations, political institutions and many instances of social and economic reform. In this paper we take a first step towards analyzing the role of leadership to ask: when and how does a leader engineer change? We show that while underlying structural conditions and institutions are important, there is an independent first-order role for individual agency in bringing about change and thus transforming the institutions. We emphasize the key nature of the symbiotic relationship between followers decisions' to willingly entrust their faith in the leader and the leader's initiative at leading them. This two-way interaction can endogenously give rise to threshold effects; slight differences in the leader's ability or the underlying structural conditions can dramatically improve the prospects for successful change. Given the centrality of this leader-follower relationship, we further explore conditions under which an individual may deliberately prefer to follow an ambitious leader with divergent interests rather than a benevolent one with congruent preferences. Thus by virtue of having followers, both `good' and `bad' leaders may be effective at bringing about change.Leadership, Followers, Change

Earnings Inequality in India: Has the Rise of Caste and Religion Based Politics in India had an Impact?

Since 1989, there has been a sharp increase in the role of caste and religion in determining political fortunes at both state and federal levels in India. As a consequence, significant intercaste and inter-religion differences in earnings have the potential to stall the process of economic reforms. Yet, the patterns and determinants of such differences remain unexplored. We address this lacuna in the literature, and explore the determinants of the differences in inter-caste and inter-religion earnings in India during the 1987-99 period, using the 43rd and 55th rounds of National Sample Survey (NSS). Our results suggest that (a) earnings differences between “upper” castes and SC/ST have declined between 1987 and 1999, (b) over the same period, earnings differences between Muslims and non-Muslims have increased, to the detriment of the former, and (c) inter-caste and inter-religion differences in earnings can be explained largely by corresponding differences in educational endowment and returns on age (and, hence, experience). However, differences in returns on education do not explain inter-caste and interreligion earnings differences to a great extent.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57199/1/wp819 .pd

Why Transition Paths Differ: Russian and Chinese Enterprise Performance Compared

We use enterprise data to analyse and compare the determinants of enterprise performance in China and Russia. We find that in China, enterprise growth and efficiency is associated with rapid increases in factor inputs including management, as well as TFP, but not greatly associated with ownership or institutional factors. In contrast, sales growth in Russia is not associated with improvements in factor quantity (except for labor) or quality; TFP is not influenced by competition and privatization to outsiders does not enhance company performance relative to insider ownership. The main determinants of TFP are instead demand and institutional factors at a regional level.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39910/3/wp525.pd

The Leader as Catalyst – on Leadership and the Mechanics of Institutional Change

Individual leaders have been central to the transformation of political institutions, organizations and many instances of social and economic reform. Why are some leaders able to take advantage of opportunities to successfully catalyze large-scale change while others fail? In this paper we argue that the key to understanding a leader’s effectiveness lies in dissecting the symbiotic nature of the leader-follower relationship. While the expected dynamism of a leader attracts followers, at the same time, followers empower the leader and contribute to his dynamism. This two-way leader-follower interaction can endogenously give rise to threshold effects: ‘small’ differences in leader ability can have a large impact on the degree of effective leadership and dramatically alter the prospects for change. The framework also naturally allows us to explore when individuals may deliberately prefer to follow an ambitious leader with very different preferences rather than a leader with more congruent preferences. Moreover, by empowering the self-interested ambitious leader, such followership may make him a more effective agent of (both good and bad) change.