Subramaniam Madheswaran

Institute for Social and Economic Change

In an agrarian economy economic impact of illness acts not only through out of pocket expenditure, but also through loss of labour time and wages at the individual level. Using the information collected from 676 respondents at selected villages in West Bengal from 2009 to 2010, the present paper examines the impact of health on labour supply behavi...

Over the years various plans and programmes have been initiated and implemented by the state government of Orissa. But, state’s health indicators have not improved substantially. Moreover, in recent years, health seeking behaviour of the people has been affected due to increasing cost of health care. Health care is not free of cost any more due to...

The life insurance industry in developing Asian economies is under‐developed compared with global standards. The low market penetration is attributed to full or partial government ownership and entry restrictions on foreign insurers. Regulatory changes and adoption of liberal policies have aided the growth of the life insurance industry in the past...

The paper examines the impact of farmers' health status on farm production at selected villages in West Bengal, India. Using a household production function model, the study finds that health status as measured by the number of sick-days reduces farm production. However, nutritional dimension of health indicated by BMI does not influence the farm p...

The economic policy reform in respect of Indian cement industry, during the early 80's, resulted in a phenomenal growth of this sector. Cement industry being highly energy intensive in nature, further development of this industry, without increasing pressure on energy demand, would require growth in productivity. Thus, aim of this paper is to estim...

The present paper aims at measuring energy use efficiency in Indian cement industry and estimating the factors explaining inter-firm variations in energy use efficiency. Within the framework of production theory, data envelopment analysis has been used to measure energy use efficiency. Using firm-level data from electronic PROWESS database for the...

Economic development can have significant environmental impacts. This is true of projects in all major such as power and energy, industry, transportation, and sanitation and sewage. Exposure to environmental contaminants may cause risks to human life and health. To regulate these risks, governments undertake a wide variety of environmental policy p...

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of health on labour productivity surrogated by income at the household level. Using ata from a nationally representative survey of 73, 868 households conducted from January to June 2004 in India, this paper shows that the burden of income loss due to ailment, which is significantly high in th...

The aim of this paper is to examine the existence and direction of the causal relationship between energy consumption and output growth in the Indian cement industry for the period 1979–80 to 2004–05. The most recently developed panel unit root, a heterogeneous panel cointegration and panel-based error correction model, is applied within a multivar...

Coal combustion, for the production of cement, generates considerable amount of environmentally detrimental carbon dioxide as an undesirable by-product. Thus, this paper aims at measuring environmental efficiency within a joint production framework of both desirable and undesirable output using Data Envelopment Analysis and Directional Distance Fun...

This chapter examines inequality in the formal sector in urban India - the part of the economy that is more integrated into the global economic system - and pays special attention to caste-related income and employment gaps among highly educated employees. Education pays a significant premium and that, over time, the return on ever-higher qualifica...

This paper aims to explore the labour productivity convergence in manufacturing sector across fifteen major Indian states during 1979-80 to 2000-01, using cross-section analysis. The analysis examines the convergence hypothesis taking both absolute and conditional convergence into consideration. The results indicate that though absolute ? convergen...

In this paper we study the feasibility of estimating a monetary value for a QALY (MVQ). Using two different surveys of the Spanish population (total n� =� 892), we consider whether willingness to pay (WTP) is (approximately) proportional to the health gains measured in QALYs. We also explore whether subjects' responses are prone to any significant...

Policy makers confronted with the need to introduce health and safety regulations often wonder how to value the benefits of these regulations. One way that a monetary value could be placed on reductions in health risks, including risk of death, is through understanding how people are compensated for the different risks they take. While there is an...

This paper uses National Sample Survey data to examine the wage gap between higher castes and the scheduled castes/tribes in the regular salaried urban labour market. The main conclusions we draw are (a) discrimination causes 15 per cent lower wages for SC/STs as compared to equally qualified others; (b) SC/ST workers are discriminated against both...

Applying a Stochastic Production Frontier to sector-level data within manufacturing sector in India, this paper examines Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth during 1979-80 to 1997-98. The analysis focuses on the trend of technical progress (TP) and Technical Efficiency Change (TEC). The empirical result suggests that the TFP growth in a large nu...

Beedi industry is important as it accounts for a large share of employment in the unorganised workforce in Karnataka. Employment and wages to beedi rollers have become contentious issues in the state as the industry and trade unions have taken up different positions on this. In this context, this paper shows that the beedi industry in the state is...

This paper uses Degree Holders and Technical Personnel Survey of India to examine the wage gap between Non-Scheduled Castes/Tribes(NSC) and Scheduled Castes/Tribes(SC/ST). Separate wage equations, corrected for selection bias, are estimated for NSC and SC/ST. The parameter estimates of the wage equations were decomposed into ‘endowment’ and ‘treatm...

In the context of growing unorganised component in the beedi industry, this paper addresses the following questions: First, what is the extent to which the beedi workers accessed the statutory benefits? What has been the role of government in enabling the workers to obtain the benefits? What is the impact of different production relations in the be...

This paper primarily focuses on the role of economic growth and inflation in determining the growth of labor productivity in the manufacturing sector. The empirical evidence derived from a three variable Vector Autoregression model reveal that both economic growth and inflation play a significant role in influencing labor productivity as perceived...

Abstract Applying a Stochastic Production Frontier to sector-level data within manufacturing sector in India, this paper examines Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth during 1979-80 to 1997-98. The analysis focuses on the trend of technical progress (TP) and Technical Efficiency Change (TEC). The stochastic frontier production function approach,...

The literature on the rural credit market in India (and elsewhere) has generally assumed that peasant farm households are rationed in their access to subsidized formal credit. Because of a lack of infrastructure and poor access to institutional credit, such farmers are exploited by means of an interlocked market connecting informal credit to the sa...

In this paper we study the feasibility of estimating a monetary value for a QALY (MVQ). Using two different surveys of the Spanish population (total n� =� 892), we consider whether willingness to pay (WTP) is (approximately) proportional to the health gains measured in QALYs. We also explore whether subjects' responses are prone to any significant...

The Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) is engaged in interdisciplinary research in analytical and applied areas of the social sciences, encompassing diverse aspects of development. ISEC works with central, state and local governments as well as international agencies by undertaking sy...

The Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) is engaged in interdisciplinary research in analytical and applied areas of the social sciences, encompassing diverse aspects of development. ISEC works with central, state and local governments as well as international agencies by undertaking sy...

by S. Madheswaran, SANDEE Working Paper No. 9-04 Policy makers confronted with the need to introduce health and safety regulations often wonder how to value the benefits of these regulations. One way that a monetary value could be placed on reductions in health risks, including risk of death, is through understanding how people are compensated for...