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3721 items in total found

Working Papers | 1989

Ghana Public Sector Finances: Recent Developments and Issues

Gupta Anand P

This paper provides a perspective on how Ghana has managed her public sector finances since the inception of the economic reforms programme in 1983. It reveals that Ghana continues to have a deficit in her public sector finances-Ghana's current public sector deficit (5.5% of GDP) is of about the same size it was before the commencement of the economic reforms programme. This is contrary to the general perception of Ghana having succeeded in eliminating her public sector deficit, and that too over a relatively short period. The paper also shows that between 1982 and 1987 the Government of Ghana's tax and nontax revenue as % of GDP grew by 8.5 percentage points (from 5.6 to 14.1%), with export duties alone accounting for roughly one-half of this impressive growth. With the government revenues growing, government consumption expenditure has also grown-from 6.5% of GDP in 1982 to 10.6% in 1987. In other words, government consumption expenditure increases alone absorbed 48.2% of the revenue growth-and as much as 113.9% of the growth in collections from export duties. The Ghana policymakers need to ponder over this development. Finally, a word must be said about capital spending which has risen from negligible level in 1983 to 8.3% of GDP in 1988. This is indeed a major achievement: capital spending has been used for rehabilitation of the country's economic and social infrastructure which was allowed to deteriorate throughout the 1970s. however, with public savings being relatively small (e.g. 2.6% of GDP in 1988), the government has chosen to finance the shortfall (in resources required to finance higher levels of capital spending) through external resources, which Ghana so far has been able to mobilize on highly concessional terms. But what about the future? In case the terms harden, will Ghana be able to afford them?

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Working Papers | 1989

Egalitarian Departures from the Ideal Point

Lahiri Somdeb

In this paper we propose a new solution to bargaining or group decision problems, which requires an arbitrator to choose that point on the Pareto frontier of the feasible set where losses in utility from the ideal point are equal for all the agents. The solution is motivated by ones already existing in the literature. We then present two modes of characterizing this solution which uses familiar axioms in bargaining theory and also some axioms which are intuitively plausible variants of those existing in the literature. The two key axioms are Independence of Common Monotone Transformation modulo the Ideal Point and Redundancy of Additional Alternatives Other Than a Reference Point.

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Working Papers | 1989

Managing Ecological Diversity, Simultaneity, Compelxity and Change an Eco-Political Perspective

Gupta Ramesh

Mainly Indian studies on Governance from Ecological Perspective during last decade were reviewed as a part of Third Survey on Public Administration organized by Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi. The importance of ecological or environmental issues has been realized in several studies but the bearing ecological variables have on the design and dynamics of public administration has not been adequately conceptualized. The discipline of Political Science has particularly neglected the rigorous empirical studies on this aspect. Of late there has been resurgence of interest in the study of ecological perspectives as it evolved in ancient Indian literature. The fusion of ancient understanding and the modern insights available through both natural and social science analysis remains to be done. This review is about conception of ecology (relationships between living beings and their environment-living or non living ) in viewing interaction between people and state. Several questions have been kept in view; how have the demands of ecological variability and administrative uniformity been matched; if scientific enquiries and institutional arrnagements for incorporating the emerging insights in design of public systems are adequate, how have peoples organizations and NGO's (Non Governmental Organizations) reacted to the chasm between public policies and local realities; what are the strategies and styles of protest, campaign and legal activism in conflicts around natural resources; how has the framework for analyzing public policies for risk and uncertainty evolved; and finally what are the questions that the discipline must address in future. The paper is divided into Four parts. Part one deals with the evolution of ecological thought in public administration. Part two includes discussion on ecological diversity and uniformity of administrative systems. Part three looks into ecological movements and the strategies and styles used by these struggles in different parts of the country. The approaches to negotiation, campaigns and legal activism used by the eco-movements/ struggles are also discussed. How public policy deals with the issue of risk and uncertainty is discussed in Part four. The implications for further research have been drawn in each section but an overview has been presented in the end.

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Working Papers | 1989

Agro-Processing Industries: Potential, Constraints and Task Ahead

Srivastava Uma Kant

An agro-industry is an enterprise that processes bio-mass, i.e. agricultural raw materials, which include ground and tree crops as well as livestock and fisheries, to create edible or usable forms, improve storage and shelf life, create easily transportable forms, enhance nutritive value, and extract chemicals for other uses. As the products of agro-industries are both edible and non-edible, the agro-industries can be classified as agro-food insutries (or merely food processing industries) and agro-non-food industries. The agro-industry provides the crucial farm-industry linkage which helps accelerate agricultural development by creating backward linkages (supply of credit, inputs and other production enhancement services) and forward linkages (processing and marketing), adding value tot he farmer's produce, generating employment opportunities, and increasing the farmer's net income. This in turn motivates the farmer for better productivity and further opens up possibilities of industrial development. The agro-industry generates new demand on the farm sector for more and different agricultural outputs which are more suitable for processing. An agro-processing plant can open up new crop and livestock opportunities to the farmer and thus increase the farm income and employment. The paper identifies following major issues to be discussed and researched: 1. Organizational Patterns for Agro-Processing. 2. R&D Inputs and Technology Upgradation. 3. Market Development. 4. Need for Confessional Finance and Larger Margin Money for Working Capital. 5. Tax Incidence. 6. Linkage Agro-industry with Planning for Agro-Climate Regions. 7. Strengthening of the Data Base. 8. Need for Further Research.

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Working Papers | 1989

Modelling and Analysis of Large Systems Some Approaches

Tripathy Arabinda

The concepts and nature of large scale modelling have been presented. The necessity of having a good grasp of the system has been stressed. Some of the large scale modelling efforts have been presented.

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Working Papers | 1989

Leisure, Health and Stress

Pestonjee D M and Muncherji Nina B

The term 'leisure' derives from the Latin 'licere', meaning "to be permitted", and is defined in the modern dictionary as "freedom from occupation, employment, or engagement". Leisure has meant different things in different cultures. However, no matter how one tries to modify the concept of leisure, 'time' is its essence. Leisure, can no more be divorced from the element of 'time' than it can be completely separated from the function of 'work'. Leisure can be viewed as 'no work behaviour in which people engage during free time. Of all he values that the medical authorities and educators claim for the recreational use of leisure none is mentioned more frequently than its potential for helping attain sound health, if we participate in it sensibly. If we use it well, leisure can help to keep us on an even mental keel. We can get temporary relief from our tensions, anxieties, frustrations, if we can in our leisure, establish a world apart from ourselves and this helps us in dealing with our problems without coming apart at the seams. We generally presume that stress is a causative factor in health related problem. Further, the leisure phenomenon can counter the adverse impact of stress on health. It is for this reason, that we need to look carefully at the 'leisure-health-stress' linkage.

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Working Papers | 1989

Independence of Irrelevant Transfers

Lahiri Somdeb

In this paper, we provide a partial geometric characterization of the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) Axiom, called Independence of Irrelevant Transfers (IIT) as also a characterization of the Nash Bargaining Solution without the IIA Axiom. The characterization has been motivated by the work of Shapley (1969) and Thomson (1981) to a very great extent and contributes to the growing literature on bargaining solutions without the IIA Axiom.

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Working Papers | 1989

Narmada Project: An Opportunity for Redefining Social Relations

Gupta Ramesh

In this paper we show that rationalizability of a bargaining solution by a symmetric metric implies that the bargaining solution is anonymous. We further show that rationalizability of a bargaining solution by a metric implies that the solution satisfies metric respect for unanimity.

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Working Papers | 1989

Rationalization of Bargaining Solutions by Symmetric Metrics and Respect for Unanimity

Lahiri Somdeb

There has been a heated controversy around the Narmada project. Environmentalists have rightly argued for an open and informed debate. The government and the academics supporting it have felt that all the information has been shared. We do not intend to discuss the merits or demerits of various arguments concerning costs/benefits, mobilization of resources, deforestation, catchment area planning etc. Not because these are not important issues but there are some other options concerning the rights of tribals which have not been discussed in the debate so far. We have argued that Narmada can offer an opportunity to redefine the property and social relations provides the oustees are given proper share in the (a) equity of Narmada Development Corporation, (c) ownership of canal lengths, (c) electricity grids, (d) value adding enterprises etc. This share is due to them not just on humanitarian ground but also on efficiency ground. People who conserved the natural resources for so long may maintain the distribution of water and power at lesser cost than the bureaucracy notorious for its inertia. In any case the conflicts among the oustee owners of water and power and the settled plain farmers will settle at lesser cost who should get what, where and how.

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Working Papers | 1989

A Legrangian Heuristic for the Capacitated Plant Location Problem with Side Constraints

Sridharan R

In this paper we present a Lagrangian relaxation approach for solving the capacitated plant location problem with side constraints. The side constraints are upper bound constraints on disjoint subsets of the (0-1) variables. We also provide an application where this procedure can be used to solve a particular vehicle Routing Problem. Computational results are provide for some problems both on the main frame computer as well as the personal computer.

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