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

A Service of zbw Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre for Economics Public and Private Sector Jobs, Unreported Income and Consumption Gap in India: Evidence from Micro-Data Public and Private Sector Jobs, Unreported Income and

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. This paper tries to document the presence of unreported income among public sector employees in India. We investigate empirically the wage gap as well as consumption expenditure parity between public and private sector workers. It tests the hypothesis that despite a lower level of public sector income in some of the quantiles, if the level of durable goods consumption between the private and the public sector employees are similar, then it might be indicative of the presence of unreported income among the public sector workers. The 2004-05 survey of income and consumption by workers in both private and public sectors (NSSO) supports presence of unaccounted for income among public sector employees at the uppermost quantile. The empirical part is followed by a generalized theoretical formulation that comes up with a measure of the equilibrium level of the unreported income earned by the public sector employees. JEL Classification: C12, C31, D23, J2

Nickel–Vanadium–Manganese Trimetallic Nitride as Energy Saving, Efficient Bifunctional Electrocatalyst for Alkaline Water Splitting via Urea Electrocatalysis

Hydrogen production through pure water electrolysis is often found less economic as it requires high potential for water oxidation. The presence of urea in water involving effective urea oxidation can be considered as an effective strategy to produce hydrogen economically. Herein, we develop trimetallic nickel vanadium manganese nitride porous microspheres as an efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst for both urea oxidation reaction (UOR) as well as hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) mechanisms. The optimized NiVMn nitride exhibits eye-catching UOR activity along with HER activity that required only 1.36 and −0.253 V electrode potentials, respectively, to achieve a high current density of 100 mA cm–2. Combining its bifunctional activity in UOR and HER in a two-electrode system, an energy saving by 0.26 V potential compared to water electrolysis through water oxidation can be acquired to reach 50 mA cm–2 current density. The presence of manganese(II) has a significant influence in stabilizing high valence V(V) and Ni(II), offering large number of active sites, and during UOR, the effective electronic transitions are more between Mn → Ni rather than Mn → V, leading to excellent and stable UOR performance. Indeed, the electrocatalyst and the approach offering considerable energy saving phenomena are believed to make hydrogen production more economic and sustainable

Sensing of ethanol and other alcohol contaminated ethanol by conducting functional poly(o-phenylenediamine)

Poly(o-phenylenediamine) with amine (–NH2) functional group substitutions was chemically synthesized from the monomer o-phenylenediamine using ammonium persulfate oxidant in sulphuric acid medium. The synthesized polymer was soluble in organic solvent like dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), dimethyl formamide, etc. The sensing layer was fabricated by a simple drop coating method using the polymer solution in DMSO and the layer was doped with sulfuric acid doping using optimized doping conditions. An average resistance of the doped polymer layer was observed as 2–5 MΩ. The doped conducting polymer layer was used as chemiresistor for the successful sensing of ethanol and methanol or isopropanol contamination in ethanol. The response of doped polymer layer was examined under continuous flow of methanol, ethanol, isopropanol, ethanol/methanol, and ethanol/isopropanol with air mixture at room temperature (25 ± 3 °C) and room humidity (65 ± 5%). The sensing mechanism for doped functional poly(o-phenylenediamine) through –NH2 group substitutions was explored with the help of various standard characterizations

Sensing of Higher Alcohols and Selective Sensing of Iso-Amyl Alcohol by Poly (o-Phenylenediamine) Nanofiber

Nanofiber of semiconducting poly(o-phenylen-ediamine) (PoPD) with free =NH functional groups synthesized in dimethyl sulfoxide by reverse salting-out process was employed as chemiresistive sensor for the successful sensing of aliphatic alcohols vapor. The resistivity of PoPD nanofiber in its self-charge separated form was decreased upon exposure of various alcohol vapor, viz., methanol, ethanol, propanol, isopropanol, n-butanol, t-butanol, 1-pentanol, and hexanol with air mixture at room temperature (30±2 °C) and room humidity (65±5%). The film of PoPD nanofiber was responded strongly towards the methanol and ethanol vapor irrespective of their concentration above 50 ppm with air flow due to having strong interaction with such small molecules. However, the vapor of higher alcohols at room temperature could also be detected considering their differences in the % responses at varying concentrations. Interestingly, the film of PoPD nanofiber could be used for selective sensing of iso-amyl alcohol vapor, as the resistivity was increased in presence of vapor of iso-amyl alcohol with air. The sensing mechanism was established on the basis of the different interactions of PoPD nanofiber with the aliphatic alcohols analyzed from the spectroscopic characterizations

Facile synthesis of flower-like morphology Cu0.27Co2.73O4 for a high-performance supercapattery with extraordinary cycling stability

The partial replacement of Co by Cu in cobaltite to give Cu0.27Co2.73O4 with unique flower-like morphology is found to be very beneficial for supercapacitor–battery hybrid applications. The 3D architecture of the material on a conductive substrate resulted in outstanding supercapattery performance. Asymmetric assembly of the material with activated carbon in a two-electrode system delivered high energy and power densities as well as a high specific capacity. The device also showed excellent cycling stability over 20 000 cycles, with a capacity retention value of 86.9%

Ammonia-Assisted Growth of CoSn(OH)6 Nanostructures and Their Electrochemical Performances for Supercapacitor

In this work, ammonia-assisted one step growth of SnO₂ and mixed metal hydroxide CoSn(OH)6 on Ni foam is illustrated. The nanostructured films grown on Ni foam are highly porous in nature. The CoSn(OH)6 nanostructures were deposited using three different molar ratios of Sn/Co precursors i.e., 1:1, 1:2 and 2:1 and their performances as supercapacitor have been investigated and compared with pristine SnO₂. Interestingly, the CoSn(OH)6 thin films prepared with 1:2 molar ratio of Sn/Co showed remarkably high areal capacitance and good cyclic stability. It is believed that the presence of different metal cations and their valence states along with the porous nanostructure makes the material outstanding as supercapacitor. The highest areal capacitance of 4189 mF cm-2 was obtained at a current density of 2 mA cm-2 for CoSn(OH)6 thin films offering an excellent cyclic stability with a capacity retention of 90.3% after 2000 cycles