Volume: 03, No: 2, July 2010

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    BOQK REVIEW: Writing About Business: The New Columbia Knight-Bageho! Guide to Economics and Business Journalism, Terri Thompson, ed., NY: Columbia University Press, 2001, xxvi-422 pages.
    (School of Business, Independent University, Bangladesh, 2010-07-01) Alam, G.M. Shahidul
    Writing About Business: The New Columbia Knight-Bagehot Guide to Economics and Business Journalism, Terri Thompson, ed., NY: Columbia University Press, 2001, xxv+422 pages. Terri Thompson, director of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship at the prestigious Columbia Graduate School of Journalism when she had cobbled together the book under review, introduces its thematic content in these words: ln many ways the world has gotten smaller as developments in technology and the growth of the internet have brought us closer together. But one thing has not changed. Business and economies are complicated, and writing about them is risky. Everyday holds a chance for mistakes, misunderstandings, and misrepresentations. Therein lies the challenge presented by a field not very familiar with the general population of Bangladesh, primarily because, other than the odd exception, it is not one that is covered extensively or, more importantly, in its many intricacies, in the local media, nor one that is taught as a separate discipline in the country’s highest educational institutions, until recently, when the Media and Communication department of independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) introduced a course on Business Journalism in 2010. Thon1pson’s book should succeed in educating anyone interested in the practice of business and economics journalism, or, indeed, in just what it entails, although it is heavily biased towards the United States’ scenario.
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    Rural-Urban Migration in Bangladesh: The Need for Diverting Rural Migrants to Secondary Cities
    (School of Business, Independent University, Bangladesh, 2010-07-01) Roy, Mihir Kumar
    Bangladesh has been experiencing a rapid urbanization since independence in 1971, but the distribution of urban population is highly skewed and the capital city receives a disproportionate urban population. The other metropolitan cities are also growing faster than the secondary and tertiary level urban centers. The overarching aim of this paper is to examine how secondary cities can work to attract the rural migrants to make a more balanced distribution of urban population. The paper is based on information obtained from secondary sources. It tries to identgfit the reasons behind the rapid rural-urban migration in the capital city in general and secondary cities in particular. The paper reveals that as rural people migrate owing to economic reasons, the creation of economic opportunities in secondary cities is essential to divert these migrants to secondary cities for a more balanced distribution of urban population. The paper makes some tentative recommendations to strengthen the economic base of the secondary cities, including capaciajv building o/‘the local government in the secondary cities, which will promote these cities to be able to attract migrants.
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    Financial and Management Accounting Practices in Small Business: An Exploratory Study in India
    (School of Business, Independent University, Bangladesh, 2010-07-01) Das, Ashim Kumar; Dey, Nikhil Bhusan
    Small Business promotion has continued to remain an important and integral part of Indian development strategy since her independence. The concentrated policy emphasis upon small firms as a vital vehicle of progress draws upon this sector's crucial role in generating employment and income at the regional level and acting as a shock absorbed during period of economic crisis. In the current business environment, firms are faced with intensijfiting competition locally and globally. It is vital in this environment that Small Business firms be equipped with appropriate and modernfinancial and managerial accounting practices in order for them to survive and remain profitable. Growing literature on financial and management accounting supports the argument that in small business, financial & management accounting is one of the key issues. It not only increases the success rate but also aflects the level of performance of a business. This research paper reports an exploratory study by raising some queries on the financial and management accounting practices of small businesses in India and attempts to _/ind empirical justification on the usefulness of these tools of accounting for decision making. The result of the study does prove that there is a wide gap between theory of financial & management accounting and actual practices by the small business in India. The study also reveals that firms not doing well are less likely to have knowledge on different tools of financial and management accounting.
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    Role of Thin Commodity Futures Markets in Physical Market Price Making: An Analysis of Wheat Futures in India in the Post-Ban Era
    (School of Business, Independent University, Bangladesh, 2010-07-01) Ghosh, Nilanjan
    There is a belief that even thin futures markets can act as a forum for reference pricing and create more volatility in the physical market prices. This article tests that hypothesis, given a few problems aflecting the efliciency of the wheat futures markets in India, after the resumption of wheat futures in May 2009 following a ban of more than two years. The article tries to answer three questions." D0 physical market players use the fixtures price of wheat as a reference price? Does the volatility in futures prices cause price volatility in the physical markets? What are the determinants of volume and volatility in the wheat futures markets, as also their interrelation? The article finds little evidence to suggest that futures price serves as reference price for transacting contracts in the physical market, and, as a natural corollary, futures market volatility cannot lead to volatility in the physical market. The level o/‘liquidity was low in the futures markets, as the markets were not only bereft ofspeculative volumes, it did not even seem to have served the purpose of hedgers. Hence, while rejecting the hypothesis set for testing, this article concludes that it is not possible for a thin market, bereft of adequate participation and liquidity, to provide a forum for discovering the reference price for the physical market, and thus it cannot destabilize the latter. These conclusions have been arrived with time series econometric analysis, consisting of Vector Auto regression (VAR) methods, Granger causality tests, Auto regression methods (AR), and seemingly unrelated regression equation methods.
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    Bangladesh Law and Order Situation: Clustering-Based Discriminant Analysis
    (School of Business, Independent University, Bangladesh, 2010-07-01) Rahman, Matiur; Chowdhury, Tanzina
    In this paper an attempt has been made to analyze people ’s perception about law and order situation and law enforcing bodies in Bangladesh in the framework of Clustering-based Discriminant analysis in addition to descriptive analysis‘ Interesting outcomes have emerged from the stuay which are useful for policy makers. Thus, some policy implications have also been provided herein. Keywords: Law and Order, Clustering and Discriminant Analysis INTRODUCTION The Police of Bangladesh has a glorious involvement in the struggle of freedom in 1971A Many police personnel embraced martyrdom after fighting bravely during the war of independence. In the independent Bangladesh, the police force was reorganized with a program of introducing new discipline, increasing more number of police force and recruiting women staff, etc. Henceforth, along with other law cnforcing agencies the police force has been carrying out the duties of enforcing law, maintaining law and order, protecting human life rights, and the civilian assets, etc. In order to bring revitalization in this force, committees were fomted in 1977 and 1986 for seeking expert opinions on the agenda. Some of the recommendations were implemented, while a host of recommendations were still on the desk. Like all other countries of the world, people of Bangladesh also expect and trust that the police will play the roles of a social regulator directed by the laws of the country and a custodian of social discipline‘ In preparing a comprehensive plan for the development programs of the Bangladesh police force, an intensive report is required with the assessment of its accountability to the citizen of the country as the prime law enforcing agency.
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    Post MFA Effects on Women’s Jobs in Bangladesh
    (School of Business, Independent University,Bangladesh, 2010-07-01) Z. Oma, Rumana; Ambler, G.; Kamal, Nashid
    Bangladesh Enjoyed a tariff free multi-fiber agreement with the US which was supposed to expire in December 2004 and there was a prediction that many garment workers would be jobless and join informal sex workers such as domestic work or sex work. This longitudinal study was undertaken during the period of June 2004 to Dec '05. The objective is to look at the effects of post MFA on the working women in the urban slums of Dhaka and also identify correlates of change in employment. The study followed 300 women from the urban slums of Dhaka collecting data in four equally spaced rounds. These women are from four categories garment worker, sex worker, domestic worker and housewife, the latter being the reference category. Logistic regression (for clustered data) was used to model the outcome variable 'change in employment' on various correlates. The study finds that, 95% women remained in garment work and none went to sex or domestic work, although some became housewives. This implies that post MFA employment change was not significant and the findings match the national situation. Most factories diversified themselves and shifted to knitwear. Further diversification of the garment industry is recommended along with creation of more jobs.