Shabda Gyawali's Blog

'High AIDS rate in Nepali sex workers returning from India' You won’t find a chapter on prostitution in most economics textbooks. Prostitution as an industry is full of economic puzzles: Prostitutes are low-skilled, but highly paid. Why is prostitution more common in poor countries? One obvious explanation is that prostitution falls as women’s income and opportunity costs rise. What’s less obvious is that prostitution falls as men’s income rises, too. Why does that happen? prostitutes being what economists call an inferior good. As income rises men prefer stable marriages over occasional hookers. And this has policy implications: the best way to reduce prostitution may be making both women and men richer, rather than legal penalties and informational campaigns. Why is prostitution more common in areas with high migration? one cost of being a prostitute is reduced value in the marriage market. Most guys won’t marry ex-hookers. Prostitutes can avoid this cost by hiding the fact ...

Economics prides itself on being the most scientific of the social sciences. Yet the X and Y axes can’t always capture globalization’s unpredictable turns. In this week’s List, FP looks at five ways in which the world econo mY High productivity and low unemployment make us all better offy is pushing economists to think outside the box. The orthodoxy: Economic theory does not guarantee that wages will reflect productivity in absolute terms, but most economists think that productivity-spurred growth will eventually increase everyone’s pie. Northwestern University economics professor Robert J. Gordon characterizes this view as, “productivity is the seed that creates the flower of a nation’s standard of living.” Heretical facts: Despite six years of sustained growth, with unemployment averaging around 5 percent, the median U.S. worker is not faring well. Since 2001, middle-class Americans have seen their pay drop by 4 percent, although labor productivity went up by 15 percent during the sa...

Messy, raucous, democratic India is growing fast, and now may partner up with the world's richest democracy—America. By Fareed Zakaria Every year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, there's a star. Not a person but a country. One country impresses the gathering of global leaders because of a particularly smart Finance minister or a compelling tale of reform or even a glamorous gala. This year there was no contest. In the decade that I've been going to Davos, no country has captured the imagination of the conference and dominated the conversation as India in 2006. It was not a matter of chance. As you got off the plane in Zurich, there were large billboards extolling INCREDIBLE INDIA. Davos itself was plastered with signs. WORLD'S FASTEST GROWING FREE MARKET DEMOCRACY! proclaimed the town's buses. When you got to your room, you found an iPod Shuffle loaded with Bollywood songs, and a pashmina shawl, gifts from the Indian delegation. When you entered the meeting roo...

Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, held in London on June 22, 1897, was one of the grandest fetes the world has ever seen: 46,000 troops and 11 colonial prime ministers arrived from the four corners of the earth to pay homage to their sovereign. The event was as much a celebration of Victoria's 60 years on the throne as it was of Britain's superpower status. In 1897, Queen Victoria ruled over a quarter of the world's population and a fifth of its territory, all connected by the latest marvel of British technology, the telegraph, and patrolled by the Royal Navy, which was larger than the next two navies put together. "The world took note," says the historian Karl Meyer. The New York Times gushed: "We are a part ... of the Greater Britain which seems so plainly destined to dominate this planet'." An 8-year-old boy, Arnold Toynbee, who became a great historian, watched the parade while sitting on his uncle's shoulders. "I remember the atmosp...

My brother is bring this book for me from Nepal .I will be posting my views after reading it .IF you have already read this book, views and analysis will be appreciated .... The books that have come out since the ceasefire last year have all concentrated on the politically interesting period in Nepal’s history. But few authors have assessed the socio-economic impact of the armed conflict and recommend strategies for reconstruction. In Nepal’s Conflict: A Micro-Impact Analysis on Economy, Bishwambher Pyakuryal, the economist and professor, and Rabi Shanker Sainju, program director at the National Planning Commission, fill this gap. Aside from the loss of life, the country was beset by population displacement and political instability. The authors conclude that the impact of the conflict on the country’s economic growth has been much more serious than we previously imagined. Nepal’s economy grew at 4.8 percent in 1995-96, but growth had plummeted to minus 0.3 percent in 2001-02. Even ...

From l to r: Humla herdsmen cross the border bridge into Tibet with Nepali timber to barter for food and alcohol, mountain goats with salt on their backs arrive in Mugu. The traditional trade routes from Tibet and India into Nepal in the early 1950s.Canny Karnali traders therefore had extra rice from Achham and salt from Tibet. It seemed as dependable as the sunrise in the east—the land of salt was the north, Tibet, and the land of provisions was the Achham plains. It seemed as if the salt traders would tread this loop forever. The promises all parties involved made, the lengths they went to ensure trust and reliability created an aura around Tibetan salt that is evident even today. The Nyinbus of Humla still keep a wooden box full of old Tibetan salt in the most sacred room of their house dedicated to the family god. Humli Khampa people, who are now settled in Bajura are still reluctant to use the iodised salt distributed in Martadi. They continue to use salt from the Tibetan plateau....

Micro-Finance movement has really taken off in South Asia. According to a recent World Bank report, microfinance today meets around 15 per cent of the overall credit requirements of low-income families. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are leading the movement, while India falls under medium coverage category. The report, ‘Microfinance in South Asia - towards financial inclusion for the poor’, notes that microfinance today reaches at least 35 million households in the region. However, the penetration and outreach of the sector varies greatly across the region. The report classifies the six South Asian countries into high, medium and low coverage levels. Leading this movement are Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where more than 60 per cent of the poor are served by this sector. Nepal and India (increasingly) fall in the medium coverage category, while Pakistan and Afghanistan have been classified as low-coverage countries. Both countries with high levels of coverage have devised unique methods of mak...

Non Resident Nepali celebrated Bhanu jyanti and Nepali literature in Florida .The funcation was organized by International Nepali Literary Society (INLS) Florida Chaptar . Bhanubhakta Acharya is a luminous star of Nepali literature. He was an outstanding poet, who dedicated his entire life to enriching Nepali literature. Perhaps Bhanubhakta is the only littérateur of Nepali literature whose literary reputation has been well established both at home and in several parts of India. Bhanubhakta’s life was not a bed of roses. He did face several trials and tribulations in his life, but nothing could deter him from his mission to contribute to the Nepali literature. He remained active throughout his life to enrich it. We can learn a lot from his life. Bhanubhakta, son of Dhananjaya Acharya, was born in Chundi Beshi of Ramgha in 1814. This village lies in the Tanahun district in Gandaki zone. A voracious reader, he was quite a handsome boy but very different from his friends. He was not inter...

The World Bank (WB) has warned that it would stall all assistance related to the financial sector reform programme if there is no 'satisfactory' improvement in Nepal Bank Limited (NBL) within one month and the expert management team at the bank is not restored, reports Kantipur daily. In her letter to the finance secretary Bidhyadhar Mallik Thursday, WB's Nepal country director Susan Goldmark has given the government time till 21 August for this. The letter says that if the two pre-conditions stated in the letter are not fulfilled by that time then all assistance related to financial sector reform would be suspended. As per this, the WB would suspend grants and loans amounting to Rs 10 billion ($150 million). It has also threatened of suspending budgetary support programme. Citing dissatisfaction over the union activities and lack of cooperation from the central bank, ICCMT, an Irish/Scottish consulting firm that had been handling the management of troubled Nepal Bank Limit...

An interesting study by the World Bank on educational achievement in Nepal is reported in the very-informative, highly-commendable blog of Freidrich Huebler (hat tip to the resourceful Bayesian Heresy ). Nepal is poor: GDP per head is around $300, secondary school attendance is 30% (less than 1 in 3 kids attend secondary school), primary school attendance is 74% and life expectancy is 60 years. It is a country with an overwhelming Hindu majority, clearly stratified into dozens of hereditary, mutually-exclusive groups, called castes : the Brahman caste (priests and scholars) ranks top, followed by the Kshatriya (rulers and warriors), Vaishya (merchants), Sudra (peasants and manual workers), and the Dalits (untouchables). The following tables from Huebler show clear disparities in school attendance across castes/ethnic groups Here are Hueber’s explanations: At the level of the country as a whole, the primary school NAR [Net Attendance Rate] is 73.5 percent. Children from Brahman, Chh...

“Cultural platitude is only one aspect of Nepal’s neighborly entanglements. More pervasive are economic domination and political influence of India. Landlocked Nepal has always remained a market for India. The shackles were somewhat loosened with Nepal’s joining of the Universal Postal Union in the 1950s, and currency autonomy achieved in the 1960s. However, the fact that today 25 percent of the Nepali market has Indian currency circulation indicates well the vulnerability of Nepal’s monetary situation.”- Dr Harka Gurung- march 2001) Nepal does not have the direct peg adjustment relationship with Dollar but can instigate through Indian Currency .According to “The Economist”-weekly magazine published from London .Indian rupee has appreciated by nearly 10% since late 2006. Indian currency deparitated steady for almost a decade from 1993 to 2003 . Dropping from an average annual rate of Rs31.37:US$1 in the 1993/94 fiscal year (April-March) to Rs48.40:US$1 in 2002/03, The Appreciation of I...

A case study by Lakshmi Iyer An assistant professor in the Business, Government and the International Economy unit at Harvard Business School. This is an interesting paper .which basically concludes that the reason behind the People’s war in not caste system or social polarization but poverty and low level of economic development, http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/07-065.pdf

I was pub crawling from durbarmarg to Thamel with my Amercian born and raised Nepali cousin .A Steet kid around 9 year old who was euphoria high from glue sniffing was lying down in the side walks .My cousin with a moist eyes and a heavy throat looked at me and said“Its real.Its like in the post card ”.He took out this SLR camera from his back pack and started caputraing this price less movement .After walking a few sec he pointed at this huge pink building with christmas light,fenced all around and asked me what was it ? I told him it’s the king’s palace .When we reached thamel ,we were in the hunt for pubs with happy hours offering .On the way we saw kathmandu digital genertation teen ageers fully loaded with high tech mp3 players and cells phones, gangster style hip-hop dress up, fancy bikes vrooming down the streets and getting the beast out of there 750 cc toys. Some sipping there Carmel lattés, hogging there double Decker sunda...

KATHMANDU: A tax concession offered by Nepal's new budget and the government's efforts to bolster security for industries have appeased Indian company Aarti Strips Pvt Ltd that has given up its plan to leave the country and relocate in India and elsewhere. Aarti Strips, a venture in which India's Bhushan group has a stake of nearly Nepali Rs.3 billion, became one of the biggest manufacturers of corrugated steel sheets in Nepal after it began operations in Biratnagar city in eastern Morang district in 2002. Aarti, one of Nepal's largest forex earners with its annual turnover of around Rs.6 billion, had announced that it would pull out of Nepal due to the worsening security situation and an export tax. "We produce about 100,000 tonnes yearly, about 87 percent of which is exported to Assam and Bihar," said Rosit Unnithan, general manager at Aarti. "However, Nepal used to levy a half percent tax on the sale price, which made us lose nearly Rs.2-3 million,...