Analysis of Recent Rice Price Dynamics in Bangladesh: Causes and Policy Options

Rice availability and affordability are the key determinants of food security in Bangladesh. Therefore, it becomes the most important crop for the social and political economy of the country. Although a tremendous technological advancement contributed to the increasing trend of rice production, its affordability threatened due to the increasing price at the consumers’ level. The recent natural calamities and COVID-19 have worsened the food security status across the world. This research has estimated the demand and supply of rice in the pandemic era and figured out the drivers of recent price hike both in the producers’ and consumers’ levels using empirical and cognitive approaches. Based on the findings, some actionable policy options have been suggested to address the price level of rice in Bangladesh towards sustaining food security.

“A Critical Analysis to Improve Medical Tourism and Hospitality”

Medical tourism refers to visiting another country for medical care. The twentieth century witnessed the exorbitant price hike in medical treatment in the developed countries. Hospitality has proven its incredible potentials in most of the countries and its signature power in the modern era. Similarly, hospitality is capable to cure diseases with its magical flair of service in a hospital or treatment center. The study aims to determine the challenges of hospitality in medical tourism, improve key areas and build a strategic initiative to improve the performance of a country's medical tourism for the smooth visit of tourists. The researcher has framed research questions and distributed the questionnaires in 3 multi-specialty hospitals which are placed in the hubs of medical tourism in India. The data gathered of a hundred samples are analyzed and interpreted using a 5-point Likert scale. The need for improvements in the state, central policy, execution of in-house hospitality as well as distinct international lounges for patience and bystanders are needed. The study emphasizes the significance of a new medical tourism model and suggests a mechanism for implementing it. Keywords: Hospitality, Hospital, Diet, Medical Tourism, Visitor

Evaluating the Impacts of Food Safety Policies on Japan’s Rice Imports Based on the Simultaneous Buy and Sell System

This study evaluated the impacts of food safety policies on Japan’s Simultaneous Buy and Sell rice imports through measuring tariff equivalents of food safety policies. In order to construct an estimated model, a Japanese consumer’s utility function is introduced and developed with consumer’s preference parameters and elasticity of substitution. In the empirical study part, Japan’s positive list system and rice traceability were analyzed and assessed as critical food safety policies. Results showed that after the implementation of the positive list system, consumers’ preference for foreign rice and the substitution elasticity diminished. This decreasing tendency was quite similar to the results after the enforcement of rice traceability. The tariff equivalents of food safety policies on imported rice fluctuated around ¥50 yen/kg from fiscal year 2000 to 2005 and decreased because of the global grain price hike after 2006. The tariff equivalents soared in 2010, which was induced by the traceability regulation, and then dulled during Japan’s earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Subsequently, after the recovery from natural disasters, the tariff equivalents of food safety policies became higher. Therefore, food safety policies had made imported rice less attractive, weakened the competitive power of rice exporting countries, and had statistically significant impacts on Japan’s rice importation.

A call for revamping the policy on import process of anticancer drugs in Pakistan

Madam, cancer therapy in Pakistan is a costly treatment financially exhausting patients and their caregivers. Due to the sky high costs of treatment, there is a lack of cancer care facilities in the country. The sale and regulation of anticancer drugs and biologics is controlled by the Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan (DRAP). DRAP is responsible for granting No Objection Certificate (NOC) to import unregistered drugs either for the patient or the institutional use of a hospital, both subject to renewal. This process can take up from a minimum of 10 days to a maximum of 30 days, for an individual patient it may take up to 1 to 3 days. This was a task almost unachievable before the formation of DRAP. (1,2) In Pakistan, there have been challenges such as price hike in local medicines (3), anticancer drug shortages due to unavailability of active pharmaceutical ingredients (4) as well as COVID19 related raw material and drug availability (5). The average time for importing an unregistered drug from outside the country is about 4-6 weeks, which may be further delayed for months. Our discourse aims to bring attention to this issue, as delay in initiation or continuation of treatment significantly reduces the chances of the patient’s survival with time, which is something they do not have much of We propose the following steps as part of making this process easier for the stakeholders and patients alike: Reduce the time of import of unregistered drugs to 1 week (revamp import process/fast-track) Decentralize authority to provincial DRAP to reduce the burden Once an unregistered drug is imported, it should be registered in the list of special status drugs to fasten future process Facilitate the cancer centers on procurement of import medicines. Hospitals who face inventory challenges- should be able to easily borrow an imported medicine item from a nearby hospital where it is available. Exempt custom duties and taxes on import of such medicines Encourage local manufacturing of generic drugs Abolish regularity duties on import of raw material of said medicines for the manufacturer of such generic drugs Allow multiple sources of drug import Trainee program for DRAP officials dealing with biologics Derive an online process/portal to communicate and update patients and hospitals for delays and implement procedures to deal with such issues (6). Continuous...

Monetary Policy

The chapter explores two significant challenges faced by central banks in LFDCs: fiscal dominance and external shocks. Monetary policy can be dominated by governments that rely on seigniorage generated by the central bank or impose other constraints to facilitate the financing of persistent deficits. The chapter discusses and illustrates for several countries the concept of seigniorage, examines the mechanisms of fiscal dominance, and assesses its consequences. External oil and food price shocks also raise several monetary policy challenges. Using a theoretical approach, the chapter explores the trade-off between price and output stabilization that the central bank faces after a commodity price hike. The analysis takes into account whether the country is a net exporter or a net importer and whether it is on fixed or on flexible exchange rates. It also discusses coordination issues between monetary and fiscal policies, in particular when windfall gains accrue to the government.

From solidarity to resistance: host communities’ evolving response to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

Bangladesh sets an admirable example of solidarity with the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar by hosting more than a million Rohingyas despite its resource constraints. However, there is a perceptible shift from this rather unconditional solidarity to an anti-refugee sentiment. In evaluating the factors that contributed to these changing dynamics, we analysed how the host communities’ solidarity with the plight of Rohingya refugees evolved. Broadly, it identifies three key factors that influence the approaches of the locals towards the refugees: economic instability as a result of the wage fall and price hike, unequal access to humanitarian aid and uneven distribution of resource opportunities created through substantial humanitarian operations and finally, political uncertainty about the future of the Rohingya crisis. By bringing the experiences of host communities and the manifold implications of existing humanitarian interventions into the centre of the analysis, the paper underlines the need for a more conciliatory approach involving different actors engaged in this crisis. In so doing, we argue that addressing the adverse impacts of a refugee crisis on the poorer hosts, particularly within the context of a protracted refugee situation, needs a more systematic evaluation, and it cannot be dealt with isolation from the broader socio-economic context of the refugee-hosting regions.

Oil Price Hike, Debt Burden and Poverty in Pakistan

Hiked oil prices have always heightened debt burden of an economy and poverty too. Pakistan as a developing country has also been facing this crisis since its inception. Therefore, in this study the data of the probed variables has been collected from the period ranging 1972-2019. Auto-regressive Distributive Lag Model has been employed as a methodology, for throwing light on the results of the short run along with the long run. For inspecting the research, head count ratio is used as the dependent variable. Whereas, factors such as gross domestic product, foreign direct investment, infant mortality rate, literacy rate, unemployment rate, external debt, oil prices and investment are used as the independent ones. The results of the study disclose that the coefficient of all independent variables have a positive association with poverty in both the long and short run except GDP and investment. However, the GDP and investment coefficients are found to be significant in short run and insignificant in the results of long run. The study depicted several trends with the passing years and suggested some policy measures which, if adopted, might lead to clear the bleak picture of economy.

Sex During Pandemic: Panic Buying of Sex Toys During COVID-19 Lockdown

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost every part of human life which reveals several peculiar human behaviors. Panic buying is one of the erratic phenomenon that has been observed in many countries of the world during this COVID-19 pandemic. The selling of online sex dolls, lingerie, and sex toys was increased during the COVID-19 lockdown in several countries like Australia, UK, Denmark, Colombia, New Zealand, Italy, Spain, France, India, North America, and Ireland. The increase in sex toy market turnover has several implications such as customization of recreational facilities, limitations in alternative sources of pleasure, need to have sex and unfortunately, and unavailability of a partner. We speculate that people may buy sex toys in response to perceived scarcity, perceived short supply, the anticipation of price hike, or to get control over the environment. However, there could be other factors such as an extra time to explore sexuality, and being apart from the partners. There is a need to study the sexual behavior and sex toy use among people in the post-pandemic era and their repercussions on the intimate relationship.

A Decade of Impact of Monetary Policy on Food Inflation: An Overview and Future Direction

This article presents a systematic literature review spanning the decade of 2010–2020 in a thematic fashion. It provides an in-depth analysis of how monetary policy regimes are responding to food inflation. It discusses about factors driving food inflation and the manner in which efficiency of financial markets facilitate policy transmission. Further, it explains how food insecurity is exacerbated by rise in food prices and the way high-income countries protect their farmers through input subsidies, indirectly contributing to global food price hike. It also argues that a strong monetary policy credibility can lend stationarity and mean-reversion to inflation rates. Next, it discusses the issues faced by central banks in measurement of inflation such as conflict of choice in different inflation measures and supply side constraints ranging from high farm-to-fork mark-ups to cartelization and hoarding. In subsequent section, it deals with the question whether to target headline or core inflation. After that, it presents a snapshot of various advanced and emerging countries operating their monetary policy in the presence of fiscal policy. It illustrates that the degree of fiscal intervention should be decided according to individual threshold of every country, taking into account the proportion of Ricardian and non-Ricardian population.

Impacts of Food Loss on the Cost of Cultivation: A Study on Agriculture Commodities of India

India is the respectable producer of most of the food grains in the world despite such a large production we are the 102nd rank in global hunger index 2019 and one of the most starving nations of the world. For a country like India production is not a problem anymore but the food available for human consumption is the problem as there is a huge amount of food loss in the marketing chain [1,2,3]. India losses a large amount of its production in post-harvest activities due to under established supply chains and poor infrastructure. So, this paper studies the effect of post-harvest losses on the cost of food production in the long-terms both empirically (Simple regression analysis) and theoretically (law of Scarcity by Lionel Robbins) from 1997 to 2017 and unravels that they are positively correlated i.e., post-harvest losses are one of major determining factor for actual price hike in the cost of cultivation of major agriculture commodities in India.