Asia-Pacific Development Journal - Volume 15, Issue 1, 2010

We review the literature on the relationship between agricultural trade policy reform and poverty, and the results of recent detailed simulation studies applied to economies in the Asia-Pacific region. We then use the Global Trade Analysis Project model to evaluate the possible impacts of the most recently proposed modalities for agricultural trade reform under Doha on the economies of the Asia-Pacific region, which we compare to a benchmark of comprehensive agricultural trade reform. The current proposal does not result in significant cuts to applied tariffs, and has very modest overall effects on welfare. Average poverty in the region would decrease overall, but the distribution across countries is uneven. By contrast, comprehensive agricultural trade reform, with developing economies fully engaged, tends to benefit most economies in the region in the aggregate, and consistently lowers poverty.

Concern over the environmental effects of fossil fuels in India has been growing as domestic consumption levels increase. Along with industry, households are major consumers of commercial energy and, consequently, major contributors to the total energy use in India. Emission levels in the country are gradually increasing.

Thailand introduced a universal health-care scheme in 2001, initially with a co-payment of 30 baht (B) per physician’s visit which was abolished by the military Government in 2006. The scheme covers 75 per cent of the Thai population. Nevertheless, it lacks flexibility for the beneficiaries as it is a one-size-fits-all scheme. In this study, choicebased conjoint (CBC) analysis is used to identify the health-care demands of different subpopulations in the Mae Rim district, northern Thailand. The different demands of subpopulations, such as men, women and ethnic minorities, are revealed through the CBC analysis. Most households would pay a co-payment higher than B 30 if the services were adapted to the demand, that is, if the quality of service were improved. In general, women appear more willing to pay a higher price than men if the benefits are improved accordingly. This means that men profit much more from the policy change of dropping the co-payment than do women. Furthermore, the present analysis indicates the need for more health education training, designed to meet the needs of the Hmong people in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate changes in productivity, technical efficiency and technology across the economic sectors during the period 1985-2006. We also seek to identify the turning points for productivity growth to see whether it was accompanied by technological change and/or technical efficiency. For estimating economic growth, aggregate production function is used. We find that, during the study period, technical progress contributed about 19.7 per cent to the country’s economic growth. We also estimate total factor productivity for the whole economy as well as for individual economic sectors, and the results show that the economy’s productivity growth was largely driven by the industrial sector.

Ownership of three-wheelers, a mode of paratransit, is rapidly increasing in Sri Lanka. Results of a survey among drivers and customers of for-hire three-wheelers are analysed in the present paper, which has direct policy relevance for policymakers and urban planners in Asian developing countries.

In the present paper, an attempt is made to examine the causal relationship between the per capita consumption of coal, electricity, oil and total commercial energy and the per capita real gross domestic product (GDP), using a co-integration and vector error correction model. The increase in real GDP, among other things, indicates a higher demand for a large quantity of commercial energy such as coal, oil and electricity. This implies that low infrastructure development limits the usage of commercial energy, which may also hold back economic growth. Empirical findings reveal that there is a unidirectional causality running from coal, oil and commercial energy consumption to per capita real GDP, whereas a unidirectional causality running from per capita real GDP to per capita electricity consumption is found. It is suggested that the input of per capita energy consumption stimulates enhanced economic growth in Nepal.