Home Menu
icon-menu-close.svg

Faculty & Research

Faculty & Research

Research Productive

Show result

Clear
Search Query :
Area :
Search Query :
3819 items in total found

Working Papers | 1998

A Management Perspective for Sustainable Fisheries Under Globalised Market Conditions: The Indian Scenario

Chakraborti Milindo and Samar K. Datta

India enjoys a vast and versatile resource base in respect of her fisheries. However, the country presently has reached a crossroad so far as sustainable tapping of his resource base is concerned. Defining sustainability not only in terms of economic viability but also in the context of ecological and social compatibility, the study looks into the problems and prospects of sustainable management of Indian fisheries. It analyse the various types of negative externalities arising out of a lack of clearly defined 'property rights' regime, both from within and from without. In doing so it examines the sustainability issues in respect of capture and culture fisheries exports and global competitiveness of fish and fishery products and fishermen's cooperatives. A future policy perspective is developed through comparing the Common Fisheries Policy of the EU and the existing National Fisheries Policy in respect of their capabilities in striking the necessary balance between economic needs and socio-ecological requirements. The study concludes by highlighting the need for evolving a network of brotherhood type organizations institutionalized at local stakeholders' level.

Read More

Working Papers | 1998

Market Reforms and the Criticality of Institutions: A Few Issues in the Indian Context

Patibandla Murali

This paper brings out a few issues on how prevailing institutional conditions are inadequate for an efficient functioning of markets, and on the role of government policy in the transition period in the Indian context. We approach the issue of market institutions form the new institutional economics perspective. The basic argument of the paper is that the prevailing institutional conditions are not totally consistent and are inadequate with the spirit of free market economy and the approach of the reforms has been lopsided. To put it in the words of Williamson (1994), the approach of the reforms should be not just getting the prices right but getting the institutions right: to get the prices right one has to get the institutions right.

Read More

Working Papers | 1998

Operating Characteristics of Empty Solar Cooker

Girja Sharan

In this report we present some of the operating characteristics of an empty box solar cooker, under climatic conditions of Ahmedabad.

Read More

Working Papers | 1998

Demand for Forest Products in India: Past Trends and Projections to 2010

Kumar Arvind and Vijay Paul Sharma

This paper provides a brief summary of the results of growth performance and projections of demand for forest products in India and uses these results to provide a background for discussion of implications for forest policy and management. The trends indicate that the production of most forest products grew slightly at slower growth rates than its consumption. The growth rates for production and consumption of many products during 1981-94 have been lower than for 1970-80 period. The model used to forecast the demand and supply of forest products performed satisfactorily in terms of goodness of fit and its predictability. The forecasts of demand and supply showed a deficit of all types of forest products at national level; except for wrapping and packaging paper and paperboard, which was sufficient for the next one and half decades. Demand for forest products is likely to increase form current levels, but the rate of increase is likely to be lower than in the past. Moreover, the forest products and the raw material required to produce them will change with the changes in the market and the substitutes of these products. Therefore, the national forest policy and management should take into account all these changes and their effect on extent and composition of demand for forest products.

Read More

Working Papers | 1998

Indias Export Since the Reforms: Three Analytic Industry Studies

Patibandla Murali and Ghemawat Pankaj

Our analysis of markets, competitors and suppliers in three key Indian export industries-diamonds, garments, and software – sheds light on the effects of India's recent economic reforms on export competitiveness. It also calls attention to the imperative to upgrade in international competition. And finally, it affords some insight into the process of such upgrading in the context of a relatively poor country. Our somewhat unexpected inferences about demand conditions and related and supporting industries suggest the following testable hypothesis: internationally competitive industries from poor countries will tend to have a standalone character, at least intially. That is, they will be relatively detached from both domestic demand and domestic related and supporting industries.

Read More

Working Papers | 1998

How Different are Multinational Subsidiaries from Local Firms in a Developing Economy: A Study of Indian Industry

Patibandla Murali

1424 The spell-overs associated with superior production and marketing practices of multinational (MNC) firms to local firms in a developing economy are germane only when MNC firms are significantly different from local firms in technological, organizational and marketing practices. The spill-overs and competition induced deliberate efforts of local firms should make the best practices common contributing to growth process, especially in developing countries such as India which have achieved a certain degree of industrialization and technological capabilities. This paper makes a conceptual distinction between exogenous and behavioural response variables that determine the differences among MNC and domestic firms. The empirical exercise tests for how different are MNCs from local firms in production efficiency, vertical integration, R&D behaviour, marketing, exporting and importing intensity for five Indian industries on the basis of firm level panel data. The explanation for the observed differences or lack of differences is drawn from the arguments of exogenous and behavioural response variables.

Read More

Working Papers | 1998

Estimating Strength of Electrical Back-up for Box Solar Cooker Using Simulation

Chaudhuri T K and Girja Sharan

In this paper we use simulation to estimate the strength of back-up needed in Ahmedabad region to make the box cooker usable throughout the year. A lumped parameter model is made of double glazed cooker marketed in Gujarat. Its performance is simulated using climatic data of Ahmedabad during August, when insolation is the lowest. Simulations are done on an empty cooker, placed on horizontal surface at 8 A.M. Plate and cover temperatures are tracked till 4 P.M. at interval of less than a minute. Unassisted cooker will fail to be of use in August, because plate temperature rises very slowly and does not reach 120 degree centigrade, considered necessary. A back-up of 50 W is found necessary to make the cooker perform satisfactorily in August, and hence in other months. This will keep the cooker essentially a slow cooking solar device as it is.

Read More

Working Papers | 1998

Internal Policy Reforms and Evolution of Market Structure: A Study of Indian Industry

Patibandla Murali

The recent market reforms in developing economies have led to increasing presence of multinational firms which has significant implication on the evolution of the domestic market structure. This paper builds a simple theoretical model which considers firm level asymmetries in terms of time of entry, costs of production, and firm-specific intangibles under oligopolistic competition in explaining the evolution of markets in the context of the Indian industry. The main propositions of the model are empirically verified by econometric exercises based on firm level panel data for a set of industries. The results, for four of out of six industries studies, show that new entrant MNCs export at higher intensity than incumbents. Exports at the initial period helps new entrants to realize minimum efficient scale and subsequently adopt strategies towards enhancing domestic market shares. The results suggest a positive explanation of domestic market shares of firms by their relative technical efficiency in production. Increased competition form new entrant multinational firms is driving domestic firms to undertake deliberate technological efforts for enhancing production efficiency. Investment in research and development expenditure (in the host Indian market) appears to be more important for domestic firms than for new entrant multinationals for increasing technical efficiency in production.

Read More

Working Papers | 1998

Weak Localization and the Utilitarian Choice Functions: A Note

Lahiri Somdeb

In axiomatic bargaining (choice theory), a choice function of some importance is the utilitarian choice function. Basically, this choice function selects the vector of utilities whose sum is greatest, among all utility vectors. There have been several axiomatic characterizations of the utilitarian choice function. Notable among them are the ones due to Myerson (1981), and Moulin (1988). A variant of the utilitarian choice function, called the additive choice function (: the latter being defined on a larger domain, than the domain permissible for the utilitarian choice function) has been axiomatically characterized in Lahiri (forthcoming). In this paper, we present an axiomatic characterization of the utilitarian choice function, which is similar to the axiomatic characterization in Moulin [1988], except that we now replace Nash's Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives by an assumption called Weak Localization, essentially due to Peters [1992].

Read More

Working Papers | 1997

Trade Regimes and Productivity: Exploring the Impact of Tariff Policy on Firm Level technology Strategies

Rakesh Basant and Majumdar Saumen

The economic reforms initiated in 1991 were broadly based on the view that the strategy of state dominated industrialisation with high protective barriers was either a mistake of has outlived its usefulness. And this strategy should now be replaced by a more market oriented, open economy approach. However, there has been no consensus on the impact of economic liberalisation on total factor productivity in the Indian manufacturing sector. While the links between liberalisation and growth in total factor productivity at the aggregate level have been explored in the recent literature, the effect of liberalisation on firm level choices remains an under-explored area. It is important to analyse such linkage because it is only through such choices that changes in the firm level efficiency take place. The paper is an effort in this direction. It brings out empirically the complexity of strategic technology choices and the difficulties of analysing them. The analysis based on detailed firm-level data for the pre-reform period data clearly show that protectionism did not foster technological activity by Indian firms; in fact, it seems to have hampered technology related investments. Higher rates of protection discouraged firms from keeping abreast of recent technological developments through the making or purchasing of technology. It is argued that an in-depth analysis of the impact of trade on firm level choices and productivity in the pre-liberalisation phase may be useful both as a benchmark for evaluating the impact of trade liberalisation as well as for providing insights to fine tune the evolving policy instruments.

Read More
IIMA