Vishal Chandr Jaunky

J&R Institution of Research Ltd. · Economics

The paper attempts to test the Environment Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for 36 high-income countries for the period 1980-2005. The test is based on the suggestion of Narayan and Narayan (2010). Various panel data unit root and co-integration tests are applied. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and GDP series are integrated of order one and co-integr...

This paper studies the link between democracy and economic development for 28 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa for the period 1980–2005 in a panel data framework. A democracy index constructed from the Freedom House indices. A variety of panel data unit root and cointegration tests are applied. The variables are found to be integrated of order one a...

To analyze the operational efficiency of Chinese power sector at the provincial level, this paper studies the convergence of technical efficiency and productivity growth of electricity across 29 Chinese provinces during the period 1996-2008 using several convergence models. Depending on the model being employed, we find evidence of convergence of o...

The study examines the convergence patterns of real healthcare expenditure per capita (RHEPC) for 43 countries of sub-Saharan African (SSA) from the period 2000 and 2017. Conventional absolute and conditional β-convergence models are first applied. Several factors such as income, democracy, urbanisation and ageing population are found to significan...

Background: Tomato yellow leaf curl disease (TYLCD), which is caused by the genus Begomovirus, is basically transmitted by the vector whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (B. tabaci). It remains a destructive disease of tomato across the world. The disease is present in many tomato growing countries and it has a broad geographical distribution. The population...

Objectives The objective of this study is to assess the determinants of willingness to pay to enhance pandemic preparedness in Mauritius. Study design A contingent valuation method is used to estimate willingness to pay to pay for enhancing pandemic preparedness using a sample of working people in Mauritius. Methods A two-phase decision process a...

A free universal healthcare provision exists in Mauritius. Yet the share of out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure out of total household expenditure has been growing over time. This study estimates income elasticity of out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure using Mauritian household data within an Engel curve framework. In the absence of longitudinal...

Mauritius has a universal free healthcare system, based on the Beveridge model which is financed by taxpayers. There are growing considerations over improving quality of healthcare services. The purpose of the study is to employ a contingency valuation (CV) to investigate the willingness of Mauritians people to pay to improve the quality of public...

Domains of motivation, learning and personality traits (MLP) have emerged as vital constructs in studies of academic performance. Although there are abundant studies on the relationships of the three aforementioned dimensions on performance, no systematic synthesis of the empirical literature has been done regarding how three determinants jointly i...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors associated with the occurrence of shoulder pain, neck pain, upper back pain and lower back pain with particular focus on carrying schoolbags. A questionnaire containing a range of musculoskeletal pain related information was designed specifically for a group of schoolchildren aged 11 to 20 years a...

The threatened Mauritian Flying Fox (Pteropus niger) has been facing repeated mass-culling since 2015 due to the perceived damage to commercial fruits. The significant reduction in numbers from that period had led to its International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List Status being up-listed to endangered status. The purpose of the st...

Purpose and background Goa is in western India with shorelines along the Arabian Sea which has a long history of a Portuguese colony (earlier to 1961) with tropical spice plantations and cathedrals. With oscillating widespread beaches (Calangute and Palolem) Goa is a tourist attraction (Velha, Panaji) for many locals and foreigners. As a separate s...

The Mauritian Flying Fox (Pteropus niger), familiar as Greater Mascarene Flying Fox (Mauritius Fruit Bat), a large bat species common to Mauritius and La Ré-union. Mauritian Flying Fox is vulnerable to extinction due to lack of concern in their conservation, particularly when they are perceived as a threat to urban life. Preservative initiatives am...

Mainstream economics perceive an individual as highly individualistic, presuming that he/she consumes goods in the most efficient way to optimize his/her level of happiness. This study attempts to explore the nexus between socio-economic dimensions, basic needs, luxuries and personality traits and happiness in Mauritius. Material consumption and ha...

Recent years, the idea of shopping online has become a necessity than a luxury. The singularities of online shopping are budding considerably. The players of this inclination show that there is still a huge possible demand for these shopping trends. There are many contributing factors that are influencing these behaviours. This study intends to scr...

Small Island, Mauritius is adopting drastic changes with reference to technology. The prime focus of extant study is exploratory in nature and trying to examine the relationship between the factors that are inspiring Mauritian consumers and customers to go with technology and technological advances that are user friendly. E-banking services are one...

Multi-loop Aquaponic System is a detached ecosystem for both plants and fish, with increased nutrients as well as increased output efficiency. In the Multi-loop Aquaponic system, the plant growth and nutrient uptake, fish survival are dependent on climate, weather conditions, humidity (RH), carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. The study attempts to test th...

Anti-corruption campaigns usually focus on educating the population. However, little is known about the impact of knowledge, especially understanding of the anti-corruption legislation and the function of Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) body in practice. This study sheds light on the factors influencing the likelihood of reporting...

Migration is an intended drive between and within the national fringes by any professional. Recently, initial and growing disparity in development between and among states has triggered such movement. The dimensions notable are demographic, socio cultural, economic, political, infrastructural, technological and environmental. Referring to academic...

Many models in educational have tried to clarify the causal relationships of motivation variables on student performance, by presenting hypothesized models, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) under structural equation modeling (SEM). Based on the literature, this model inspected the most robust stimuli of motiv...

This study aims at understanding the customer satisfaction on adoption of e-banking services at Mauritius. This is an empirical evidence, with the help of primary data (drop off survey) and secondary sources. The main objective of the study is to investigate in depth the customer's perception regarding e-banking adoption and their satisfaction. Als...

In the context of the quantitative approach to the evaluation of educational units there is an emerging interest in discerning the factors that affect the performance of a school. The data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology provides an effective agenda for evaluating the efficiency of educational units, such as the secondary schools, in the pre...

Job satisfaction is understood in many ways and claimed to reflect an individual’s general attitude towards the job. Some believe it is simply how comfortable an individual is with his or her job, in other words, whether or not they like the job or individual aspects or facets of jobs, such as nature of work, supervision or management. This paper a...

Ordered Probit models with drop-off survey, comprising of 662 respondent’s perception towards effective functioning of government in combatting money laundering is observed. Discussions about money laundering management include the authenticity of government intention in combating the criminal and corrupt acts. Respondent’s knowledge of anti-money...

The study is designed to understand the factors influencing the perception of the Mauritians in understanding how the government is handling unexplained wealth. As an empirical in nature, this study involves the public to understand the self-assessment of factors associated with the performance of government in regulating unexplained wealth by obse...

This study analyzes the determinants of capital structures in Mauritius, with a balanced panel of 10 non-financial firms over the period 2010 to 2015. The analysis is conducted through static and dynamic models, while specifically accounting for the problems of heteroscedasticity, small sample bias as present in the datasets. The two-step General M...

This paper investigates whether shocks to pulp for paper production for 17 Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) over the period 1980-2012 are transitory or permanent. A variety of time-series and panel data unit root tests are employed. The presence of structural breaks is taken into account when performing those tests. Bas...

Juvenile delinquency is one of the most exciting and influential areas of research in behavioural sciences and became a focus of many sociologists and social scientists. Delinquency is a state of conduct disorder in youth. The discussion of juvenile delinquency gives attention to age trends, moral development and the continuity and course of antiso...

This paper studies the determinants of secondary schools' performance at School Certificate level in Mauritius for the 2014-2015 cohort. The state has been investing massively in education in a view of enhancing economic and social development. Using a cross-sectional regression model for 146 schools, various variables are employed to investigate t...

Empirical studies on the impact of entrepreneurship in boosting economic growth for panel datasets have been quite scanty in the literature. Entrepreneurs are considered to be educated, ambitious and incentive-driven. Entrepreneurial ventures relatively have greater avenue for generating new revenue. Current businesses may remain confined to the sc...

The Mauritian Lotto was first introduced on the 07th of November 2009 by lotto tech. The first jackpot was Rs 12 million. To play the game, choose 6 numbers from 1-40. Drawings are held once a week on Saturdays. The odds of winning Mauritius Lotto are one in 3,838,380. For a pick-6 lotto game, the Mauritius Lotto 6/40 lottery game has relatively ex...

It was argued by Solow (1990) that economic growth is a function of two-inputs which are the level of capital and labor in a specified zone. However, Schumpeter (1965) posited that economic growth is generated by entrepreneurship by facilitating the means of production in an economy to be configured into more efficient combinations. The paper striv...

The festival of light is considered as one application of Smart Tourism to intelligently promote this sector. This paper examines how different socio-demographic and psychological aspects are complementary to attitude towards individual appreciation of the recent festival of light (Porlwi-By-Light). In order to obtain a precise description and unde...

The paper attempts to test the forest product export-led growth hypothesis for 22 rich economies over the period 1970 to 2011. Various generations of panel unit root and cointegration tests are applied and the series are found to be integrated of order one and cointegrated, especially when applying the third-generation tests. Uni-directional causal...

This paper addresses the performance of the timber markets (Scots pine, Pinus silvestris L. and Norway spruce, Picea abies (L.) Karst.) by evaluating the order of market integration in three Swedish regions (Central, Northern, and Southern). Quarterly data of delivery prices are employed over the period 1999Q1–2012Q4. Various unit root and cointegr...

This paper investigates whether shocks (economic effects) to wood fuel production for 18 countries of the European Union (EU) over the period 1961–2012 are temporary or persistent. A variety of time-series and panel data unit root tests are employed. The presence of structural breaks is taken into account when performing those tests. Wood productio...

The material Kuznets curve (MKC) hypothesis with reference to copper for 16 high-income countries over the period 1966 to 2010 is investigated. The Narayan and Narayan (2010) testing framework is applied. Recent generations of panel unit root and cointegration tests are performed. The variables are found to be I(1) and cointegrated. Unidirectional...

This paper investigates how various socio-demographic as well as psychological factors are related to the purchasing frequency of Le Millionaire scratch card in Mauritius. In order to obtain a refined description and understanding of consumer behaviour, special attempts have been made to control for the personality traits of an individual. The OCEA...

The paper examines the copper consumption-economic growth nexus for 16 rich economies from the period 1966 to 2010. Various generations of panel unit root and cointegration tests are applied. Both series are found to be integrated of order one. Evidence of cointegration is found especially when controlling for breaks and long-run cross-sectional de...

This paper investigates the convergence pattern of technical efficiency of the South Africa Power Pool (SAPP) utilities over the period April 2003–March 2010 by means of parametric and non-parametric techniques. Technical efficiency scores are computed via both stochastic frontier analysis and data envelopment analysis. Mixed results are obtained f...

Using a world sample of countries, this paper re-examines the U-shaped relationship between per capita GDP (wealth) and life expectancy at birth (health). Since cross-sectional dependence across countries is detected, second-generation panel unit root and cointegration tests are employed. All the variables are found to be integrated in one order as...

This paper investigates whether shocks to copper consumption for 37 countries over the period 1967–2010 are transitory or persistent. A variety of time-series unit root tests is first employed. This is followed by several generations of panel data unit root tests. The presence of structural breaks is taken into account while performing those tests....

The Newton secant method is a third-order iterative nonlinear solver. It requires two function and one first derivative evaluations. However, it is not optimal as it does not satisfy the Kung-Traub conjecture. In this work, we derive an optimal fourth-order Newton secant method with the same number of function evaluations using weight functions and...

: This paper investigates whether shocks to aluminium consumption for 36 countries over the period 1967-2010 are transitory or permanent. A variety of time-series and panel data unit root tests are employed. The presence of structural breaks is taken into account when performing those tests. Following the Narayan-Popp univariate unit root test, alu...

The paper tests the material Kuznets Curve (MKC) hypothesis with regard to aluminium consumption for 20 high-income countries over the period 1970 to 2009. The test is based on the suggestion of Narayan and Narayan (2010). Various unit root and cointegration tests are applied. The aluminium and GDP series are found to be integrated of order one and...

The article attempts to test the aluminum consumption–economic growth nexus for 20 rich economies for the period 1970–2009. Various panel data unit root and cointegration tests are applied. The series are found to be integrated of order one and cointegrated, especially after controlling for cross-sectional dependence. Moreover, the Blundell–Bond sy...

The fishery sector is considered to be of vital importance by many economies in particularly the small island developing states (SIDS). The production and commercialization of fish constitute an important source of good protein, employment, and export revenues. Fish exports can indeed contribute to economic growth. This article attempts to explore...

This study investigates the feasibility of a monetary union in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) by testing for inflation convergence for 11 members. Quarterly data over the period 1992:3 – 2001:4 are employed. Various panel unit root tests are applied to test whether the purchasing power parity (PPP) holds. Overall, strong eviden...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the importance of human capital on productivity growth for 26 African countries over the period 1976-1996. To estimate productivity change, the Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) growth index is computed. This index is then decomposed into technical change and efficiency change. In general, human capital i...

A government’s two leading macroeconomic objectives are to sustain productivity growth and to ensure the prevalence of essential environmental conditions for the welfare of its civilian. Over the past decades, many countries have experienced high levels of productivity. However, despite widespread concern about greenhouse effect and climate change,...

With the prevailing relatively low per capita electric power consumption in Africa, several electric power pools have been emerging recently. The first of those power pools which is the South African Power Pool (SAPP) has started operating in 2005 under the aegis of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This paper attempts to assess th...

Balassa (1964) and Samuelson (1964) have expressed the view that economic development is normally accompanied by a real exchange rate appreciation. The aim of the study is twofold: first, we investigate whether the Balassa-Samuelson (BS) hypothesis holds, and second we appraise the performance of the commonly used productivity differentials proxy....

This paper sheds light on the income elasticity of health care expenditure in Africa. The existing literature has to date focused on developed countries due to scarcity of health expenditure data in developing countries. We herein exploit panel data techniques, combining time-series and cross-section data, which enable a substantial increase in tes...

The paper examines the school-to-work transition (STWT) for University of Mauritius (UoM) graduates over the period 1995-2000. A variety of survival frameworks is applied and the gamma frailty piecewise constant exponential (PWCE) proportional hazard model is found to fit the data best. A slightly inverted U-shaped baseline hazard is detected. A hi...

This paper tests for convergence in relative per capita electric power consumption for 22 African countries, covering the period 1971-2002. Parametric techniques which are regressions and unit root tests are used. Neoclassical convergence hypothesis such as the ?-convergence is rejected while evidence in support of ?-convergence is obtained. Stocha...

The paper examines the income elasticity of electric power consumption power (YEEPC) in Africa. This study constitutes the first attempt to explore the relationship between electricity consumption per capita and real GDP per capita for 16 African countries in a panel dimension over the period 1971 - 2002. Bi-directional causality exists and all tes...