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Intro -- Foreword -- Preface -- Contents -- Editor and Contributors -- Part I Conceptualising the Complexities in Cross-Border Movements -- 1 Perspectives on Intra-region Migration in South Asia-A Reorientation -- 1.1 Towards Re-conceptualising Migration -- 1.2 Migration in South Asia: Historical Context and Contemporary Critical Perspectives -- 1.3 Refugee Crisis in South Asian Countries -- 1.4 Human Movement Within Country-Challenges Involved -- 1.5 Objectives and Summary of the Volume -- 1.6 Concluding Comments -- 1.7 Scope for Future Research -- References -- 2 Refugees in South Asia: Political Membership, Nation-Building Projects and Securitisation of Human Flows -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 The Meaning of Refugee-South Asia and the Communitarian Turn -- 2.3 The Historical Making of Modern South Asia: Between States and Communities -- 2.4 Democracy and Otherisation: Understanding Political Membership -- 2.5 Securitisation of Refugees: Afghan Refugees in Pakistan and Bangladeshi Refugees in India -- 2.5.1 Afghan Refugees in Pakistan -- 2.5.2 Bangladeshi Refugees in India -- 2.6 Conclusion -- References -- 3 Ordeal of Statelessness in South Asia -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 The Legal Fallacy of Statelessness -- 3.3 South Asian Borders and the Spectre of Statelessness -- 3.4 The Predicament of the Stateless Chakmas and Hajongs in Arunachal Pradesh -- 3.4.1 Politicisation of the Chakmas and Hajongs -- 3.4.2 The Chakmas and Hajongs and the Intractable Federal Crisis -- 3.4.3 Outbreak of a Humanitarian Crisis -- 3.4.4 The Futility of the Institutional Safeguards -- 3.5 The Plight of the Stateless Rohingyas in Bangladesh -- 3.5.1 Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh: 'Victims' of 'Generosity' -- 3.5.2 Viciousness of Deprivation -- 3.5.3 Making of Others -- 3.6 Rohingyas in India: The 'Illegal' Refugees -- 3.6.1 The Dispensable 'Outsider'.

Provides theoretical and applied contributions connected by the methodological approach to the use of general equilibrium model

This essential volume reflects the continuing and enduring utility of general equilibrium as a framework of analyses. It attempts to reiterate that understanding broad and holistic consequence of economic events and policies go beyond partial equilibrium perspective. Cutting across areas of research, general equilibrium perspectives in terms of small-scale GE models following the theory and perspectives of Ronald Jones can help readers develop informed judgement regarding critical policies. These include but are not limited to several areas of specific interest - the interaction of financial factors with international trade and implications for the 'real sectors' of the economy, the impact of labour market reforms on the unorganised sectors in developing and transition countries, the non-uniform effects of inflation and deflation on internal and external factor flows, and the sought-after relation between foreign investment and skill accumulation

This graduate textbook brings together many of the issues that are considered staple reading for a course in trade and development: trade and labour market, trade and public economics, topics in the theory of the second best, foreign aid, factor mobility, regional and global welfare, and TRIPs.

AbstractHow does out‐migration of skilled workers affect unskilled workers' wage in the source country? When skilled workers emigrate, unskilled wages tend to go down in some countries. If the sector that uses both skilled and unskilled workers shows a lower degree of capital intensity as compared to sectors that use only skilled workers in production, it is a common outcome. We use 19 years of cross‐country data from the International Labor Organization (ILO) spanning Asia and Latin America to show that skill emigration reduces unskilled wage unambiguously for panel fixed effects and difference generalized method of moments (DGMM) estimates. The structure is also subjected to system GMM with endogenous covariates and allied robustness checks. Importantly, we find a critical level of tertiary education, such that countries generating more skill shall face weaker negative impact on unskilled wages.

AbstractThis paper examines the impact of a rise in oil prices on the wages of workers in the unorganized sector of a developing economy. The model economy is comprised of two non‐traded transport sectors, formal and informal, along with other sectors. The main results that we obtain are as follows. The informal transport sector contracts when fuel price rises and lowers the real income of the informal workers. The per‐unit return to land rises, and the factor readjustments even raise the output of other sectors in the economy. We also show why inclusion of non‐passenger transport services does not alter the main outcomes of the model.

AbstractThis paper deals with illegal immigration via two distinct activities—smuggling and trafficking of workers. A destination–source model determines economic pay‐offs and a standard labor market policy works as a deterrent. Tax paid by legal unskilled workers at the destination is determined endogenously and it finances inland monitoring against illegal immigration, holding the border patrol at a given level. The tax also finances unemployment benefit to legal workers at the destination. The number of immigrant smugglers and traffickers is also determined endogenously along with employer penalty and market wage for illegal immigrants. Higher unemployment benefits may reduce illegal wages, raise traffickers' rent and reduce flow of illegal immigrants from the source countries.

Religious and ethnic minorities often face partisan treatment with regard to provision of public goods. This may be due to discriminatory practices or historical antecedents, like caste divides in India. We measure access to public goods in eleven districts of West Bengal in India where rural concentration of religious minorities, namely Muslims is higher than the state and country-level averages. We look at the contemporary socio-economic conditions of religious minorities in the state and the outcome regarding access to public good. The evidence as presented in this paper is based on cross-section data collected between Censuses of India. This is unavailable in the extant literature. Our unit of analysis for the econometric exercise is the village. We calculated average values of the relevant variables for each village from household responses, and the aggregate village level information from the village survey data. To this end, we adopted a stratified multistage sampling design in which households are the targeted sampling units chosen from rural areas only. The first stage units are the 2001 Census villages constituting the primary sampling units. The development blocks as comprising of Census villages have been classified into three strata on the basis of the percentage of Muslim population. Subsequently, using Generalized Linear Models we find evidence of strong horizontal inequality against Muslims in terms of access to public goods. We estimated the access to targeted and non-targeted public goods such as drinking water, distance to hospitals, distance and quality of educational facilities, transport, condition of roads, etc, based on the level of concentration of Muslim population. We use percentage of Muslim population at the village level and the highest concentration dummy as key explanatory variables. Provision of public goods seems to have a negative relation with the rise in concentration of minority population. Further, to decompose the outcome variables in terms of explained (viz. education and occupation) and unexplained (viz. discrimination) variations, we use Blinder-Oaxaca technique. In particular, the minority population in concentrated districts face poorer access to infrastructure, health and transport facilities. As policy, the district level plans need to address deficits in identifiable pockets of underdevelopment with respect to some of the variables discussed here. Moreover, the persistence of information gaps and poor implementation of policies in several parts, including the region under study, despite elaborate decentralization of governance in the country needs to be addressed from institutional perspectives in future analyses.