Saibal Kar

The presence of a large informal sector as the mainstay of semi-skilled and unskilled workers raises questions on how the adoption of minimum wage in the formal sector could affect job opportunities. Using NSSO data on unorganised employment in non-directory manufacturing enterprises across 19 major states in India between 1989 and 2011 supported by time series data for minimum wage, net state domestic product, school enrolment, etc, it is found that the minimum wage has a positive impact on NDME jobs.

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An Analysis of Rural Shocks in India during the Pandemic

Vol. 57, Issue No. 29, 16 Jul, 2022

Nabamita Dutta, Saibal Kar

Utilising the third round of World Bank Survey data collected during September 2020, the employment shocks in rural India are analysed based on the gender, age, caste, and income quartile of individuals. Using graphical representations and simple mean tests, it is found that, on average, females in rural areas did not have an occupation relative to males in most of the states that feature in the survey. Older females and Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes show a lower probability of retaining regular salaried jobs during the lockdown and were adversely affected owing to disruptions in daily wage work.

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Regional Trade Openness Index and Income Disparity

Vol. 42, Issue No. 09, 03 Mar, 2007

Dibyendu S Maiti, Saibal Kar, Sugata Marjit

This study tries to look at how "open" Indian states are with respect to international trade and then tries to characterise the relationship between regional disparity and openness. The major objective is to develop an openness index at the regional/state level. The methodology developed here is not only applicable to the Indian case but also for many countries where state-level trade data are not available. The paper tries to devise a proxy which ranks states over time in terms of their exposure to trade. It is observed that the relative income of a region is closely related to the extent of openness and that such a relationship gets stronger over time. There is evidence that openness is strongly correlated with rising income disparity across regions.

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Financial Volatility and Convertibility-Some Methodological Issues

Vol. 33, Issue No. 8, 21 Feb, 1998

Saibal Kar, Sugata Marjit

Some Methodological Issues Sugata Marjit Saibal Kar This paper tries to build up a simple index which captures the financial volatility of an open economy. Judged by this index, a cross-country study of 21 developing nations over 1993-95 suggests that Thailand and Malaysia, in spite of having strong macro fundamentals, were vulnerable to financial crisis, India performs quite well in terms of the index. However, we argue that such 'performance' does not justify unfettered movement of short- term capital.