Sayema Haque Bidisha

Carbon emissions, energy consumption, and economic growth relationship in Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT This study attempts to investigate the long-run Granger causality relationship between energy consumption, carbon emissions, economic growth, and trade openness in Sri Lanka. Our analysis reveals that, there exists long-run causal relationship between carbon emission and economic growth for Sri Lanka over the period of 1971–2006. In addition, there is unidirectional causality running from economic growth to the carbon emission and energy consumption. The result implies that carbon emission reduction policies will hurt economic growth if no supplementary policies are taken to modify this causal relationship.

Globalization and the Diffusion of Ideas: Why We Should Acknowledge the Roots of Mainstream Ideas in Global Health

Although globalization has created ample opportunities and spaces to share experiences and information, the diffusion of ideas, especially in global health, is primarily influenced by the unequal distribution of economic, political and scientific powers around the world. These ideas in global health are generally rooted in High-Income Countries (HICs), and then reach Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). We argue that acknowledging and addressing this invisible trend would contribute to a greater degree of open discussions in global health. This is expected to favor innovative, alternative, and culturally sound solutions for persistent health problems and reducing inequities.

The Long Run Relationship between Youth Population and Economic Growth: Evidences from Time Series Data of Bangladesh

With the help of forty three years time series data of Bangladesh, this paper attempts to understand the long term relationship between youth population and economic growth. Despite the significance of youth population to the economy, the long run relationship between the relative share of youth population to the economy and economic growth has not been analyzed in greater detail. In this context, this paper has applied Johansen cointegration analysis where the estimation result suggests that a consequential and proportional increase in youth population will lead to a rise in GDP growth in the long run. Given the significance of demographic composition on economic growth, the estimation results emphasized the importance of policies related to greater public investment in youth development programs including those of tertiary education and skill training initiatives.

Unpaid Family Labor: A Hidden Form of Labor Market Discrimination of Women in Bangladesh

In recent decades, Bangladesh has argued to have experienced significant rise in labor market participation of women–from less than 10% during mid-80s female labor force participation has increased to as high as 35.5% in 2015. This figure though quite impressive in comparison to many developing countries, including those of South Asia, there exist concern in terms of quality of work in which they are involved. In this context, unpaid family labor in particular is a common phenomenon of the labor market of Bangladesh where family members are engaged in productive activities of the household where such works do not get any monetary compensation. According to the Labor Force Survey (LFS) 2013 as high as 40.09% of the women who were in the labor force were employed as unpaid family workers, where the corresponding figure for men is only around 4.73%. Due to non-remunerative nature, this type of labor market activities cannot be considered to contribute toward financial empowerment of women and therefore should be treated differently from mainstream paid labor market activities. Unpaid family labor although is a common phenomenon in South Asian countries, it is generally not observed in developed countries with properly functioning labor market. As a result, despite involvement of a significant percentage of workforce—mostly women in unpaid work—this component of the labor force has not been properly studied by the policy-makers or academicians. Besides, despite the non-remunerative feature of such work, the contribution of such labor is expected to be quite high given the magnitude of labor force engaged in such activities. The huge contribution of this unpaid family work especially in the context of Bangladesh therefore needs careful and thorough analysis of strategic policy formulation. In this chapter, with the help of national-level Labor Force Survey data of Bangladesh, an attempt has been made to understand the key features of unpaid family labor and given the dominance of females in such activities, this analysis is restricted only to female unpaid family labor. Besides, through suitable econometric methodology, it has also analyzed and compared the factors determining the choice of unpaid family work by the females as opposed to paid work and/or being not in the labor force.

Female Labor Market Participation in Bangladesh: Structural Changes and Determinants of Labor Supply

Bangladesh has experienced moderately sustained economic growth (annual GDP growth of 6–7%) over the past two decades, as well as a fairly rapid demographic transition that began earlier, leading to sustained and steep declines in fertility levels and mortality rates. An accompanying feature of these socioeconomic trends has been the rising participation of women in the labor market, with the female labor force participation expanding from around 8% in the mid-1980s to 30% in 2010. While rising female labor force participation in Bangladesh denotes progress for women in a relatively conservative society, and has significant implications for economic growth and poverty alleviation of the country, there remain critical aspects that need examination. First, women’s workforce participation is still very low compared to men’s, despite the fact that women attach value to having their own independent incomes. Moreover, compared to men, women remain locked into fewer sectors and types of activities that offer fewer hours of employment and lower remuneration. Often, women have little choice but to contribute as unpaid labor to the family enterprise. Second, and related to the first, is that increase in formal school enrolment, better health, lower burden of childbearing (more time) are not translating into secure full-time employment, indicating that expansion in participation is supply driven rather than demand driven. Hence, female labor market participation and its dimensions deserve an in-depth analysis from both an academic point of view and also from a policy perspective. In this paper, we attempt to examine the change over time in the nature of the female workforce and to identify factors affecting the labor supply decision of women in Bangladesh using Labor Force Survey data of several rounds (2005 and 2010 in particular) conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.

Exchange Rate and Economic Growth: An Empirical Assessment for Bangladesh

This article aims to understand the effects of exchange rate movements on economic growth in Bangladesh. Using a suitable analytical framework to derive an empirical specification, we construct a real exchange rate series and employ cointegration techniques to determine the output response to Bangladeshi currency depreciations. Our results suggest that in the long run, a 10 per cent depreciation of the real exchange rate is associated with, on average, a 3.2 per cent rise in aggregate output. However, a contractionary effect is observed in the short run so that the same magnitude of real depreciation would result in about a half per cent decline in GDP. While the long-run expansionary effect of real depreciations may be appealing for considering exchange rate policy as a development strategy, the likelihood of rising inflationary pressures needs to be kept in mind while pursuing this policy option.