Suchergebnisse

This article explores the socioeconomic factors of wheat growers' participation intensity in contract farming (CF) under both public and private firms in Haryana. Using the primary survey data of 754 wheat growers collected from two districts of Haryana, the study finds that CF participation intensity is higher under government corporations than in private firms. The Tobit regression results show that similar variables determine the participation intensity under both types of firms. But the perception of agricultural profitability has different significant signs for public and private firms. This difference in profitability perception spawns from the different contracting nature of both types of firms. The government firms directly contact farmers, while private firms hire agents to communicate with farmers. In addition, government firms encourage marginal and small farmers to adopt CF, while private firms prefer medium to large farmers owning a minimum of five acres of cultivable land. Payment security is another reason for the intensity difference between types of firms. Therefore, the study calls for a policy framework to establish better institutional structure to strengthen CF inclusiveness, where both types of firms provide the scope for more extensive participation across the groups of farmers. JEL Codes: Q12, Q13, C01

India has developed a positive attitude towards the foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows during the last five years and made several changes in the market conditions, enhanced civil rights and liberties to attract more FDI inflows. This study examines the impact of democracy on FDI inflows in India by employing an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. For the said purpose, the study uses the annual data from 1980–2017. The findings demonstrate that the democratic setup does not induce FDI inflows in the short run, but there is a positive and significant impact of democracy in the long run. Furthermore, it confirms that gross national income per capita; trade openness, political rights, and civil liberties are significant and positive determinants of FDI inflows in India. Based on findings, this study recommends that India nurture democratic values, property rights security, and values of civil liberty & freedom to appeal for more foreign investment inflows into India progressively.JEL Codes: D73, C22, F14

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows from some leading developed countries (the USA, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and France) into major four Asian economies (China, Korea, India and Singapore).Design/methodology/approachUsing one basic and four augmented versions of gravity model technique, the authors tried to examine the determinants of bilateral FDI flows in four major Asian economies. The study used World Development Indicators, CEPII, KOF and Heritage Foundation data for period 2001–2012.FindingsThe results revealed that besides the market size for host and source country, other criteria such as distance, common language and common border also influence foreign investors. Other macroeconomic factors such as inflation rate and real interest rate are among the key factors that attract more FDI. In addition to economic factors, institutional and infrastructural factors such as telecommunication, degree of openness, index of globalisation and index of economic freedom also stimulate the international investors from the developed world to the major Asian countries.Research limitations/implicationsIt is altogether possible that only a set of home country specific characteristics or host country specific characteristics does not matter when determining FDI. Most empirical studies using indices such as the index of globalisation and economic freedom are subject to certain methodological limitations such as model selection, parameter heterogeneity, outliers and moral hazard.Practical implicationsMore distance between the host and source country would result in less FDI flows due to more managerial and raw material supply chain cost. Similarly, more gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita income (PCI) are leading to more FDI flows into Asian economics. Therefore, major Asian economies should frame their economic policies in such a manner where these counties can strengthen their GDP as well as PCI. Furthermore, above countries should open its economy more and more for better FDI flows as it seems that economic globalisation and economic freedom are major determinants of bilateral FDI flows. The negative impact of inflation and interest rate should be controlled.Social implicationsFrom policy perspective, higher scores of economic, social and political globalisation also attract high FDI to the host country. On the same line higher scores in economic freedom mean that less restrictions in terms of economic policies and the policy environment are conducive for free trade and resource transfers. Higher scores in trade freedom, investment freedom and freedom from corruptions also show more developed and conducive policy environment. In the same reasoning higher scores in the composite index of economic freedom which takes information from trade freedom, investment freedom and freedom from corruption and others also encourage flow of FDI in to the host country.Originality/valueThis is the first paper which combines the globalisation index, economic freedom index and distance along with some major macroeconomic variables.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of Education, Employment, Economic Status and Empowerment (introduced as the 4Es) and other explanatory socio‐demographic factors on the utilization of maternal health care services in India. This study used data from the National Family Health Survey‐4 (2015–2016). Separate logistic regression models were fitted for four or more antenatal care visits, skilled birth attendance and postnatal care to understand the effects of 4Es on the utilization of maternal health care services in India. The findings indicate positive effects of education on antenatal care, skilled birth attendance and postnatal care, the effects of higher education being even stronger in case of antenatal care. Education leads to employment, economic status and empowerment which in turn are significantly associated with the use of antenatal care and skilled birth attendance. Interestingly, in case of postnatal care, while controlling for economic status and empowerment, the effects of education vanish. Overall, education, employment, greater economic status and empowerment emerged as reliable predictors of the use of all three maternal health care services. The positive association between the 4Es and maternal health care services utilization reiterates the need for rigorous monitoring and evaluation of the existing policies and programs, coupled with efforts to change societal attitudes toward females through political advocacy and commitment which is reflected in parallel investment in girl education, job creation for poverty reduction to facilitate women empowerment.

The recent trends and distributional patterns of communicable diseases (CD) and non-communicable diseases (NCD) in India are analysed in this study. Utilising the unit-level health-specific data from three rounds (1995, 2004 and 2014) of the National Sample Survey Office, it is found that the incidence of CDs is declining while that of NCDs increasing over time. The state-wise pattern shows that both the least-developed states and relatively developed states have a high incidence of diseases. But the incidence of CDs is relatively high in backward states like Rajasthan, Odisha, Assam, Bihar and UP, whereas the prevalence of NCDs is high in advanced states like Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and others. The multinomial logistic regression results also confirm that income, sex and availability of safe drinking water are key determinants of the presence of diseases. Thus, the policy implication of the study calls for the availability and accessibility of adequate medical facilities at affordable costs, development of a strong network of public health facilities in rural India primarily. Bringing the rural as well as urban poor into the fold of health insurance schemes would ensure a huge benefit to the masses who struggle to get the basic treatment. The development of an effective 'health information system' can be a better policy instrument in arresting the rising incidence of NCDs. JEL Classification codes: C12, C51, I15, I18

This study investigates the impact of governance index and gross fixed capital formation on the economic growth of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) using annual data from 2002 to 2019. This study employs Fixed Effect Model, Driscoll and Kraay standard error with fixed effect, Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square, Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS) and Panel Dumitrescu Hurlin Causality test. The study has divided the variables into two models where model I includes the impact of governance index (jointly) on economic growth while model II examines the impact of governance index on economic growth individually. The findings demonstrate that the governance index, gross fixed capital formation, population, control of corruption, and governance effectiveness have a positive and significant impact on economic growth, whereas regulatory quality showed a significant and negative impact on economic growth. Furthermore, regarding the Panel test, we notice the presence of unidirectional causality among the constituent variables. Therefore, this study suggests that the government should encourage economic development in the BRICS countries and move away from outdated ideas and poor institutional quality in favor of a new comprehensive reform to achieve excellent governance, population growth control, labor law changes, and corruption control.

There are studies available that study the influence of corruption on economic growth, but no existing literature studies the asymmetric relationship in context to BRICS countries. In this study, we try to fill the gap in the literature by studying the symmetric and asymmetric association between corruption, political stability and economic growth in BRICS economies where gross fixed capital formation and final consumption expenditure are considered additional variables. Further, we employ panel non-linear autoregressive distributed lag model from 1996–2018. In the long run, the non-linear estimation results confirm an asymmetric relationship while all variables show the asymmetric relationship in the short run. Additionally, the study has employed Dumitrescu– Hurlin (2012) test to find the direction of causality among the variables. The test confirms the causality in particular variables taking economic growth as dependent variable and the decomposed explanatory variables. The article's findings provide new insight into the relationship between corruption, political stability and economic growth. JEL Codes: D73, F35