Trade, infrastruture and income inequality in selected Asian countries: An empirical analysis

This paper attempts to unravel the interlinkages and interconnections among infrastructure, trade openness and income inequality, using panel data of 14 Asia-Pacific countries at different levels of development.Trade, infrastructure, imcome inequality

PRODUCT QUALITY, INCOME INEQUALITY AND MARKET STRUCTURE

This paper analyses the effects of a change in distribution of income on quality choice made by firms producing search goods. It is assumed that willingness to pay for quality of consumers is an increasing function of income. Under the assumption that distribution of income is positively skewed, which is a common characteristic of developing countries, any redistribution of income will induce firms to improve their quality levels in duopoly and monopoly markets if redistribution makes consumers equally or unequally better off. On the other hand, quality levels will deteriorate if poverty is distributed more equally among consumers.Product Quality, Income Inequality, Heterogeneous Preferences, Discriminating Monopolist, Two-Stage Duopoly Game

Assessing Barriers to Trade in Education Services in Developing Asia - Pacific Countries:An Empirical Exercise

The study, thus, touches only tip of an iceberg in terms of its analytical power to explain movement of students across nations. It points out to the definite existence of country specific barriers and from a pilot case study in India, highlights some of these possible barriers. However, future studies should be attempted to understand the extent of barriers to trade in education services through more intensive primary survey and bilateral country studies.Trade in Education Services, Asia-Pacific

Is the Value Added Tax Reform in India Poverty-Improving? An Analysis of Data from Two Major States

The Value Added Tax (VAT) was introduced in India in place of Sales Tax, taking effect in April 1, 2005. These taxes are in the domain of different state governments within the country's federal set up. Although VAT is widely acclaimed to be a better system than the sales tax on grounds of efficiency in tax collection, no study has been undertaken to assess the impact of this reform measure on social equity. This paper addresses this need with the use of concentration curves and consumption dominance curves of various orders. The simulations were done on two major states in India, namely Maharashtra and West Bengal, using National Sample Survey Unit Level data for the 55th round. The results show that the reform is largely pro-poor, although there are ways to improve it with respect to some items predominantly consumed by the relatively poorer groups.Value added tax, Marginal tax reform, public distribution system, concentration curve, Lorenz curve, marginal efficiency cost of funds, consumption dominance

Trade facilitation and poverty reduction in Asia and the Pacific : a case study of a South Asian Economic Corridor

Trade facilitation is aimed at ensuring the movement and clearance of goods across borders within the shortest time at the minimum cost. Reducing trade costs can have a profound impact on trade and therefore on poverty. Based on primary survey data, this study assesses the potential impact of trade facilitation on poverty reduction in the region falling under South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Corridor 1, which is one of the leading corridors in South Asia that handles a considerably good amount of overland trade between three major South Asian countries, namely, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan as well as global trade

Development and welfare in the presence of an urban informal sector: a three-sector general equilibrium approach

Existing theoretical models on the urban informal sector (UIS) are extensions of the Harris-Todaro (H-T) framework of rural-urban migration. Thus the models are partial equilibrium in nature stressing the supply-side adjustments; and policy ranking is guided by an SWF which is solely based on greater resource utilization in terms of unemployment reduction. The present paper allows UIS development to be spontaneous, unlike most H-T-type models. The model also emphasizes that general equilibrium modelling highlights the importance of demand-side adjustments along with supply-side; and that policy ranking should try to admit the hazardous aspect of UIS which might be independent of the unemployment problem in the economy and as such makes the H-T-type model conclusions ambiguous.Migration, informal sector, general equilibrium,