Inheritance Law Reform,Empowerment, and Human Capital Accumulation: Second-Generation Effects from India

Although many studies point towards significant positive impacts of Hindu Succession Act (HSA) reforms on females’ empowerment and access to human and physical capital, the fact that this reform also led to increased female mortality raises questions about long-term sustainability of reform effects. We use evidence from three states, one of which amended the HSA in 1994, to assess first- and second-generation effects of this reform using a triple-difference strategy. First-generation effects include greater likelihood of completing primary education, more assets brought into marriage, improved access to bank accounts, a lower share of female births, and higher female survival rates. Second-generation effects on education, time use, and health are robust and point estimates of education are larger than first-generation ones even after mothers’ endowments are controlled for, pointing to a sizeable and sustained empowerment effect.     

Showing Character: Nehru,Reputation, and the Sino-Indian Dispute, 1957–1962

Abstract

In the approach to the Sino-Indian war of 1962, the Indian government made some surprising policy choices. Most significant was Nehru’s decision to contest what was viewed by him and his officials as unimportant territory in the western sector, rejecting in the process Chou en-Lai’s 1960 “package” offer. Instead, Delhi chose to initiate in 1961 the Forward Policy, in full awareness of the severely disadvantageous position of the Indian military in the disputed border areas. Using Indian primary documents, this article makes the case that reputational considerations—particularly Nehru’s fear that any concessions to China would be viewed as weakness and provoke further aggression—help explain the puzzling aspects of India’s intransigence on the Sino-Indian territorial dispute during this period.     

Redefining community–state partnership in natural resource management: a case from India

This article examines the role of the state in the Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme in the northern province of Haryana in India. In the past two decades, significant developments pertaining to institutional reforms in promoting community–state partnerships in protecting and managing forests have been undertaken in the province. By reviewing the experiences in management of water-harvesting structures and lease of forest area to local communities, the article demonstrates that the adoption of ‘joint management’ rhetoric does not guarantee successful partnerships at the field level. The implementation of the programme calls for a radical redefinition of the role of the state in order to establish credible commitments to the local communities in terms of both policy and practice.     

Baselines for Clean Development Mechanism Projects: The Marrakesh Accords and Beyond

The Marrakesh Accords at the seventh meeting of Conference of Parties (COP-7) finally set the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) wheel moving by establishing a CDM Board and providing some broad guidelines on baselines for the CDM projects. The broad guidelines provide flexibility to develop baselines, which gives rise to prospect of more than one baseline for a project. This has been illustrated with a case study of Zafarana, a wind farm power project. seven possible baselines emerge when applying the broad guidelines included in the Accords indicating the need for detailed guidelines. In the current scenario, a project developer may have to work-out the best course of action considering criteria such as level of complexity and available expertise to develop the baseline, availability of data, expected return etc.     

Creating Surplus Labour: Neo-Liberal Transformations and the Development of Relative Surplus Population in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Many among the world’s population are surplus to the requirements of capital accumulation. These are people who become engaged in precarious employment both in rural and urban contexts and those who are involuntarily unemployed. Their presence has been particularly acute in “peripheral countries.” Mainstream economic literature explains this in terms of the dual labour market, where it is argued that surplus labour will eventually disappear with market-led economic development. Contrary to this explanation, this article argues, using Marx’s concept of relative surplus population (RSP), that under the existing neo-liberal framework such labour vulnerability is continually being created. This article charts the developmental history of Indonesia and demonstrates that the growth of RSP is an outcome of a neo-liberal transformation which favours capital accumulation at the service of global markets. Neo-liberal adjustments shape the development of RSP in three related ways. First, the adjustments change class relations and transform state orientation. Second, the reconfiguration of class dynamics and the state shapes the model of accumulation. Third, the model of accumulation eventually affects the size of RSP. It is argued that the disconnection between the domestic agricultural development and industrialisation has contributed to the maintenance of a large RSP in Indonesia.     

The Efficiency of Input Use During the Early Transition in Hungary

This paper uses Hungarian firm level panel data for the agricultural and light manufacturing sectors during the early years of the transition to investigate differences and changes in the efficiency of input use. Programming techniques measure scale and technical efficiency. The simple radial measure, as well as two other measures that account for programming slacks, are used. The results show little wastage of materials and labour, but inefficient use of energy and capital, which suggests that the development of input markets was uneven. The price liberalisation of 1989 widened efficiency differences, especially in agriculture, but this sector recovered quickest, actually using capital more efficiently by 1991. However, energy efficiency levels were low in the period of soft budget constraints and fell still further after the reforms, suggesting that a free market for energy was not established, particularly in agriculture.     

Experience of training for decentralized planning in Nepal

People's participation is both a method and an objective of rural development programmes in Nepal. The government has adopted decentralization measures to facilitate this. As the subject of decentralization involves new roles and responsibilities for both people and government officials, designing viable training programmes has been emphasized. Commensurate with this, a pilot training programme has been conducted in the Tanahun District for two years. The objective of this programme was to produce a decentralized planning training module which could be replicated elsewhere. This paper deals with the content of this programme and highlights the lessons learnt.