Democratic Welfare State as Visualised by the Quaid-i-Azam

The Quaid-i-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, is known more for his political achievements than for his socio-economic thought. Last two decades, however, have seen a continuous flow of books containing his speeches, statements, messages, interviews, discussions in pre-independence legislative bodies and addresses in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. Even a cursory look at this vast literature shows that he was not only concerned with the political aspect of sub-continent’s independence movement but also consistently expressed his views regarding the socio-economic uplift of masses in general and Muslim society in particular. These views in their bare essentials reflect a remarkable continuity of approach from the earlier days of his political career to the period he occupied the position of Governor General of Pakistan. Actually, he became more and more expressive and forthright as the prospects of Pakistan coming into existence became bright. When Pakistan finally appeared as a sovereign nation on the map of the world, he openly rejected the prevailing economic system as having failed to do justice between man and man and to eradicate friction from the international field.

Intangible Capital, Barriers to Technology Adoption and Cross-Country Income Differences

I add intangible capital to a variant of the neoclassical growth model and study the implications of this extension for cross-country income differences. I calibrate the parameters associated with intangible capital by using new estimates of investment in intangibles by Corrado et al. [2006]. I find that the addition of intangible capital significantly improves the model's ability to account for cross-country income differences. Specifically, when intangible capital is added to the model, the required TFP ratio to explain observed income differences falls from 4.05 to 2.97. I also study variants of the model with endogenous and exogenous barriers to accumulation of technology capital, which consists of intangible capital and a fraction of physical capital that embodies technology. The addition of endogenous barriers, for reasonable parameter values, has a very small positive effect on the ability of the model to account for income differences. The addition of exogenous barriers suggests that huge cross-country differences in such barriers are needed to generate the observed income differences.Cross-country Income Differences; Intangible Capital; Technology Adoption

A note on the transitional behavior of the saving rate in the neo-classical growth model (the Cobb-Douglas case)

In this short note I clarify two features of Figure 2.3 in Barro and Sala-i-Martin (2004). The figure, as it appeared in the first and second editions of the book, is confusing if not wrong. I hope this note will serve as a corrigendum to the figure.Transition dynamics; Saving rate; Neo-classical growth model

Intangible Capital and International Income Differences

I add intangible capital to a variant of the neoclassical growth model and study the implications for cross-country income differences. I calibrate the parameters associated with intangible capital by using new estimates of investment in intangibles by Corrado et al. (2006). When intangible capital is added to the model, the TFP elasticity of output increases from 2.14 to 2.64. This finding implies that the addition of intangible capital increases the ability of the neoclassical growth model to explain international income differences by more than a factor of two.International Income Differences; Intangible Capital

Intra-channel nonlinearity compensation for PM-16QAM traffic co-propagating with 28Gbaud m-ary QAM neighbours

We quantify the benefits of intra-channel nonlinear compensation in meshed optical networks, in view of network configuration, fibre design aspect, and dispersion management. We report that for a WDM optical transport network employing flexible 28Gbaud PM-mQAM transponders with no in-line dispersion compensation, intrachannel nonlinear compensation, for PM-16QAM through traffic, offers significant improvements of up to 4dB in nonlinear tolerance (Q-factor) irrespective of the co-propagating modulation format, and that this benefit is further enhanced (1.5dB) by increasing local link dispersion. For dispersion managed links, we further report that advantages of intra-channel nonlinear compensation increase with in-line dispersion compensation ratio, with 1.5dB improvements after 95% in-line dispersion compensation, compared to uncompensated transmission

The Bank Lending Survey for Ireland

The results of the survey give important information on supply and demand conditions in the loan market and they complement quantitative data on developments in this market.

Migration for Hard Work: A Reluctant Livelihood Strategy for Poor Households in West Bengal, India

projects to promote poverty reduction globally. DFID provided funds for this study as part of that goal but the views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) alone