Poverty Among Social and Economic Groups In India in the Nineteen Nineties.

This paper examines the levels and changes in poverty indicators of the rural and urban population in India disaggregated by social and economic groups. The analysis is based on the comparable estimates of poverty on the mixed reference period computed from the unit record data for the 50 th (1993-94) and the 55 th (1999-2000) rounds of the Consumer Expenditure Surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation. The issue is how far different social and economic groups shared the overall decline in poverty in the 1990s. Four poverty indicators are considered, namely, headcount ratio,the depth and severity measures (PGI and FGT*) as also the absolute size of the poor population. The social groups most vulnerable to poverty have been identified to be the scheduled caste households and the scheduled tribe households with both these groups having above average levels of poverty indicators in the rural and the urban population.Among the economic groups, the most vulnerable groups are the agricultural labour households (rural) and the casual labour households (urban) each having the highestlevels of the poverty indicators in their respective population segments. In terms of changes in poverty in the 1990s, it is found that while the scheduled caste and the agricultural labour (rural) and the casual labour (urban) households experienced declines in poverty on par with the total population, the scheduled tribe households fared badly in both the segments. A further disaggregated analysis brings out the consequences for poverty of combined social and economic vulnerabilities. The paper also presents poverty indicators adjusted for between-(economic and social) group disparity and discusses the implications of the empirical results for the design of a strategy for poverty reduction.India, Poverty, Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes, Labour Households

Determinants of Firm-level Export Performance: A Case Study of Indian Textile Garments and Apparel Industry

Drawing on international trade and industrial organisation theories, this paper identifies variable affecting (a) export decision function i.e. to export or sell in domestic market, and (b) export performance function i.e. share of exports in output. These functions are estimated for Garment and Apparel producing units in Delhi. Form of business organisation reflecting access to capital turns out to be a key determinant in both functions. Estimated marginal impact of identified variables (scale and share of sales expenses) on the probability of exporting in estimated Probit model declines sharply in making from single proprietorship to partnership and further to limited companies. On the other hand, every single determinant (scale, share of wages, share of sales expenses and technical efficiency) has found to have increasing marginal impact on export performance in estimated Tobit model in moving across the three forms of business organisation. Empirical results suggest two policy changes to boost export performance. One, given the importance of scale for exports, the existing policy of reserving garments and apparel for exclusive production in small scale units needs to be scrapped. Simultaneously, it is also necessary to amend current labour legislation applicable to large scale factory units as it introduces labour market inflexibility and hence serves as an impediment to expansion of existing units and entry of new units.Tobit Model, Business Organization, Economies of Scale

The Poor in the Indian Labour Force in the 1990s

Comparable all-India estimates of the number of workers and unemployed in 'below-poverty-line' households - together defining the poor in the Indian labour force - are presented for 1993-94 and 1999-2000. Also presented is the gender, activity-status and the rural-urban composition of this group for the two time points. From a level of 115 million (43 million females and 21 million urban) the number of working poor declined by a little over 12 million - almost entirely in rural India - over the six-year period. Over 51 (36) percent of the rural (urban) working poor were engaged in unskilled mannual labour with a further 46 percent (44 percent in urban India) being absorbed by low-productivity self-employment.India, Working Poor, Poor in Labour Force.

Poverty Decline in India in the 1990's: A Reality and Not an Artifact

Doubts have been raised about the comparability of the size distributions and of the poverty measures based on them from the 50th (1993-94) and the 55th (1999-2000) rounds of Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CES) carried out by the National Sample Survey Organisation. We resolve the comparability problems (Section I) by using the unit level records of the 50th round of CES and those relating to consumer expenditure from the employment-unemployment survey (EUS) of the 55th round. In particular, we show that the estimated monthly per capita consumer expenditure (MPCE) from the 55th round of CES based on the 30-day recall have not been biased upwards (as maintained by the critics) by an alleged extrapolation by the respondents of their prior responses to questions on the 7-day recall (if the latter were canvassed first) and that therefore they are comparable to the (recalculated) ones from the 50th round estimates. Using comparable estimates of four measures of poverty and the Sen index at the all-India level (Section II), it is shown that poverty in India has declined in the 1990s in terms of all the five measures of poverty in rural India and in the country as a whole and in urban India on all the measures of poverty except the number of urban poor. Also, normalised for the length of the time interval and the base year levels of poverty measures, the average annual rate of reduction in poverty was higher in the last six years of the 1990s than that recorded during the ten and a half years period preceding 1993-94. This is so on all the five poverty measures and this difference is particularly significant in respect of the number of poor

Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Fast Radio Bursts Detected by CHIME/FRB During the LIGO--Virgo Observing Run O3a

We search for gravitational-wave transients associated with fast radio bursts (FRBs) detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst Project (CHIME/FRB), during the first part of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (1 April 2019 15:00 UTC-1 Oct 2019 15:00 UTC). Triggers from 22 FRBs were analyzed with a search that targets compact binary coalescences with at least one neutron star component. A targeted search for generic gravitational-wave transients was conducted on 40 FRBs. We find no significant evidence for a gravitational-wave association in either search. Given the large uncertainties in the distances of the FRBs inferred from the dispersion measures in our sample, however, this does not conclusively exclude any progenitor models that include emission of a gravitational wave of the types searched for from any of these FRB events. We report $90\%$ confidence lower bounds on the distance to each FRB for a range of gravitational-wave progenitor models. By combining the inferred maximum distance information for each FRB with the sensitivity of the gravitational-wave searches, we set upper limits on the energy emitted through gravitational waves for a range of emission scenarios. We find values of order $10^{51}$-$10^{57}$ erg for a range of different emission models with central gravitational wave frequencies in the range 70-3560 Hz. Finally, we also found no significant coincident detection of gravitational waves with the repeater, FRB 20200120E, which is the closest known extragalactic FRB

Understanding reforms : post-1991 India

This book reviews the background, context, and timing of the economic reforms since July 1991 to showcase the fascinating details on the results achieved in the last twenty years. The authors critically analyse the growth strategy under Nehruvian socialism and the slow growth rate of the Indian economy and, thus, draw attention to the factors that led to reforms. The authors also describe how reforms were sustained in a low-income economy with large diversities and how they successfully survived the emergence of several coalition governments at the Centre as well as the increasing regionalization of Indian politics