Diganta Mukherjee and Uday Bhanu Sinha
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the incidence of child labour in developing countries, focusing on the role of parental attitude towards education combined with the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the incidence of child labour in developing countries, focusing on the role of parental attitude towards education combined with the returns to education in deciding between child labour and child education.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an inter‐temporal decision making framework, it is assumed that parents decide on the extent of schooling for their children.
Findings
Though education enhances the productivity of a worker and thereby increases the wage of an educated worker, it was found that a portion of children drop out of school before completion and join the workforce as the returns from full schooling are not high enough. This happens even when parents intrinsically value education and also because of the wage premium, which is a strictly positive function of the time spent in school. The paper examines the effectiveness of standard policies like compulsory schooling or financial incentives in reducing the incidence of child labour and finds that the effects of some of the policies are ambiguous.
Originality/value
The existing literature mainly focuses on poverty as the main reason for the incidence of child labour and usually views child labour through the lens of credit market imperfections. Unlike the existing literature, this paper emphasises the role of parental attitude towards education and the wage premium associated with schooling.
Details
Keywords
Shilpi Tyagi and D.K. Nauriyal
This paper aims to analyze the firm level determinants of profitability of Indian drug and pharmaceutical industry which is known for historically weak R&D initiatives.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the firm level determinants of profitability of Indian drug and pharmaceutical industry which is known for historically weak R&D initiatives.
Design/methodology/approach
The change in the economic environment brought out by the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) compliance, this industry was found to have fast adjusted to a new working environment by substantially modifying its strategies. This study aims at using inflation-adjusted panel data for a period 2000-2013 and applies the fixed effects regression model with cluster standard errors.
Findings
The study has found that export intensity, A&M intensity, firm’s market power and stronger patent regime dummy have exercised positive influence on profitability. The negative and statistically significant influence of R&D intensity and raw material import intensity points to the need for firms to adopt suitable investment strategies.
Research limitations/implications
The study suggests that firms are required to pay far more attention to optimize their operating expenditures, advertisement and marketing expenditures and improve their export orientation, as part of the long-term strategy.
Originality/value
This study uses a recent data-set to analyze the firm level profitability determinants in the Indian pharmaceutical industry and captures the effect of change in profitability pre and post-TRIPS.