Collier, P. (2008). The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be Done About It, Oxford University Press, USA.

Not Available

Estimating Quarterly GDP for Nepal: An Application of Chow-Lin Procedure

Nepal started producing annual national income estimates following an internationally accepted system of 'National Account Systems' since the late1960s; and, accordingly, the annual GDP figures for Nepal are available for a longer period. However, the production and publication of quarterly GDP for public consumption have been both rare and occasional. This paper aims to bridge this gap by providing an estimate for quarterly GDP for the period of 1997/98 Q1 to 2017/18 Q4 following well established Chow-Lin procedure. The quarterly exports and government tax revenue are used to extrapolate the magnitude and movement of quarterly GDP. The results show a deterministic seasonal movement over the quarters. In particular, increased economic activities are observed in the second and fourth quarters while making a comparison on quarter to quarter basis. It is expected that this paper will partially fulfill the gap of unavailability of quarterly GDP figures in the public domain, and documents that the researcher may use suitable econometric exercise to obtain inter-temporal disaggregation of low-frequency data such as annual GDP into quarterly figures.

Role of Inflow of Resources on Economic Growth of Nepal

This study attempts to examine the role of the inflow of resources on the economic growth of Nepal incorporating annual time-series data sets of 45 years from 1975 to 2019. The autoregressive distributed lag approach to cointegration is used to identify the long-run as well as the short-run relationship between the variables. The empirical finding indicates that there is a positive relationship between the inflow of resources and economic growth. Quantitatively, gross national saving, domestic loans, foreign loans, and export earnings have a positive impact on the economic growth in both the long-run as well as short-run for the Nepalese economy. Policies encouraging private sector participation, enlarging efficiency, and effectiveness of public sector projects, and expanding export base must be implemented.

Economic Cost of Absentee and Dropout Students in Public Schools of Nepal

High absenteeism and dropout rates in school are considered one of the major stumbling blocks in achieving educational goals in developing countries. Absentees and dropouts impose a large resource cost on the educational system and the society. The study examines the economic cost of absentee and dropout students in public schools of Nepal. Using data from public schools in a rural municipality in Nepal, the study estimates the unit cost of absentee and dropout students by level. Cost of human resource, stationery, utility and fixed costs of building and furniture were the components for estimating unit costs. The findings reveal that the unit cost of students was equivalent to U.S. $295, 130 and 143 for primary, lower-secondary, and secondary levels respectively, and an average of U.S. $189 overall. The resource loss due to dropout was around 28, 12, and 11 percent of the total resource spent for primary, lower secondary and secondary levels respectively with an average of around 16 percent. The combined resource loss from dropouts and absentees were found to be 39, 23 and 20 percent for the different levels. On average, 26 percent of the public-school resource was lost due to dropouts and absentees. The main causes of dropout and absenteeism were the lack of interest, motivation of parents and the children to attend the school. The study suggests the need for more comprehensive and in depth study for effective policy formulation to address this problem.

Perspective of Women in the Nepalese Economy: Opportunities, Challenges and Future Scope

Bidirectional relationship between economic development and women's empowerment is one of the issues in this relationship. Economic growth and prosperity is necessary to improve gender inequality by reducing poverty. Another argument assumes that women could play a fundamental role in development. Thus, equality is valuable. Capacity of women is crucial for changing their live positively. This paper explores the scopes, and opportunities provided by the government policies for Nepalese women and analyzed the constraints in implementing the policies based on this authors' two previous studies -- Effectiveness of Gender Responsive Budgeting in Nepal, 2019; and Women's Contribution in Family Economy in Nepal, 2010. Although more than NRs 500 billion of budget is allocated in the programs directly benefitting women, results are not observed as expected. Sustainable economic development is possible only if the women are capable to utilize the resources; capable to control and reap the benefits of economic opportunities; and capable to make strategic decision for changing their lives positively, once they have access to the resources. Once women are capable, there would be no limitation to be involved in economics. Result Based Budgeting (RBB) systems has proven to be a compatible framework for the institutionalization of gender budgeting.

Contribution of Insurance Business In Nepal

This study aims to find the contribution of insurance business in Nepalese economy. The insurance sector is assumed to be an infrastructural pillar of the financial sector of the economy. The role of insurance business has been growing importance in financial intermediation, which has received less attention than bank and stock markets. The ultimate goal of insurance business is to provide security to insurance industry according to national need by protecting all classes of the society from natural and social risks while embracing the globally accepted insurance norms. There has been significant contribution of insurance business boosting economic development of Nepal. The objective of the study is to investigate insurance business and examine its contribution on financial resources mobilizations in Nepal. For this theoretical analysis, different research studies have studied to draw the fundamental issues of insurance business in the economy. The simple statistical tools have been applied to analyze the collected data. Furthermore the findings of the study emphasize the development of insurance business and its contribution in mobilizing financial resources needs to be paid more attention in financial sector analysis and macroeconomic policy.

History of Forest Management in Nepal: An Analysis of Political and Economic Perspective

Forest management, a kind of practical application, is technical, scientific and economic principle of forestry to maintain and management. The history of forest management in Nepal is closely associated with the political and economic history of the country. Any change in economic and political and economic situation also directly or indirectly changes the forest management practices of Nepal. The main objective of the study is to analyze the historical development of forest management of Nepal from political and economic perspective. It is a historical and descriptive nature of the study i.e. fully based on the secondary sources of data and information in order to have better understanding about the political and economic effects on forest management practices. The key political changes in the country have been divided into five different periods and thereby notably changes in forest management practices which is starting from the state control and exploitation of forests to people's participation, protection, and conservation, sustainable, and scientific forest management. People's participation in forest management has been widely accepted in legal as well as policy level.

Do the Monetary Policy Makers Follow Rules? Testing Taylor’s Rule for Nepal

The study estimates Taylor’s rule for Nepal by using the annual time series data for the period of 1988-2018. As a requirement of Taylor's rule, the output gap has been estimated by using Hodric-Perscott filter. Consumer price index has been used as measure of inflation and 91-days treasury bills rate is taken as the proxy for the short-term interest rate set by central bank of Nepal. The ordinary least square method has been used to estimate the Taylor's equation The results show that. As Augmented Dickey-Fuller test shows that all the variables used in this study are in level form. The results show that there is a positive relationship of T-bills rule with inflation output gap. Interest rate smoothing is found to be a major concern of central bank of Nepal but follows the Taylor’s rule partially.

Nepal’s Economy in Disarray: Policies and Politics of Development

Not Available

Trade-Growth Nexus in Landlocked Developing Countries: A Quantile Regression Framework

This paper investigates the trade growth nexus in landlocked developing countries. Landlockedness imposes exogenous costs to a country making import more expensive and exports uncompetitive. Despite this fact, landlocked countries also are in the process to be integrated with world but in slow pace. Initial income is one of the major determinants of economic growth in these countries whether they are poor or rich now, however, negative impact of Landlockedness seems more severe in economic growth of poor countries. Trade has a positive role in landlocked countries too to trade than the poor countries. Neighbour countries’ economic growth has level increases, it shifts towards industrialisation so that capital formation is more important compared to labour force until the economy converges to the developed economy.