Department of Economics and Social Sciences

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Before rana plaza: towards a history of labour organizing in Bangladesh’s garment industry
(© 2016 Taylor and Francis., 1/1/2016) Siddiqi, Dina Mahnaz
Bangladesh: Class, precarity and the politics of care
(© 2017 Taylor and Francis., 1/1/2017) Siddiqi, Dina Mahnaz; Ashraf, Hasan M.
Globalisation, migration and knowledge generation: a study on higher education institutions in Bangladesh
(© 2018 Springer, Singapore, 10/2/2018) Rahman, Shahidur
There has been a marked transformation in the pattern of international migration since the 1980s, a shift of highly skilled migrants from developed to developing countries leading to brain gain from brain drain for the latter region. While skilled migration is now a well-documented research area, brain gain is still an underrepresented area. In order to understand the culture of brain gain, this research has studied the pattern of return migration of academics in Bangladesh. In this qualitative study, a group of returned academics working in private universities in their home country have been chosen through purposive sampling to participate in semi-structured interviews. The key objective of the study is to explore the factors involved in the return migration of academics to Bangladesh. The paper also examines the desirable outcomes of the academics’ return to the home country. The research findings indicate that in recent years, private universities have created opportunities for migrant academics to come back to their home country, and both instrumental and altruistic values were considered in their decisions to return. These academics are eager to make productive contributions and want to become agents in the process of raising the quality of higher education in Bangladesh.
Analytical foundations of Micro-Meso-Macro linkages in poverty monitoring: a case from Bangladesh
(BRAC University, 2004-08) Chowdhury, Tanzir A.; Rahman, Atiur
Although there is a significant amount of research going on in the field of poverty monitoring in the entire South Asian region, there is still no uniform mechanism in poverty monitoring system that will track poverty both at micro and macro level, and establish linkages between these levels for successful policy implementation. This paper attempts to address issues related to linking poverty monitoring at different levels, and the theoretical foundations in establishing theses linkages within the context of current poverty monitoring strategies in Bangladesh. In doing so, it discusses various poverty monitoring systems and tools currently used in Bangladesh to monitor poverty at various levels. It also outlines the empirical relevance for establishing links between micro and macro aspects of poverty monitoring as well as their impacts on successful policy designing and implementation. Various state and non-state actors at different levels with differing objectives undertake poverty monitoring in Bangladesh, making it difficult to establish linkages among them. These different systems need to be coordinated and a comprehensive poverty monitoring system needs to be developed by combining the best approaches of poverty analysis at various levels.
Income and expenditure distribution pattern of sunamgonj haor area: implications for poverty alleviation
(BRAC University, 2004-08) Alam, Mohammad Jahangir
Fishing income (52 per cent) was the main source of income and food expenditure (85 percent) was the main sector of expenditure of the Sunamgonj haor fishermen. Absolute poor was about 48 per cent by Direct Calorie Intake (DCI) method and about 49 per cent and 60per cent fishermen (for income measurement unit) and 37 per cent and 55 per cent (for expenditure measurement unit) below the lower and upper poverty lines by Cost of Basic Need (CBN) method respectively. The poverty level of the haor fishermen for expenditure measurement unit is lower than income measurement unit. Boat and defecation facilities were significant by odds ratio and odds ratio confidence interval. Education status of the household head and ownership of cultivated land were significant only by odds ratio. Govt. and other agencies (NGO) may consider the significant factors to increase the socio-economic conditions and particularly to reduce poverty level of the haor fishermen.
The demand-side location determinants for attracting foreign direct investment: theory and empirics
(BRAC University, 2005-08) Hoque, Anwarul
Foreign direct investment (FDI), reckoned as a major source of private capital, has grown phenomenally world wide in the last two decades. Developing countries receive about a third of the global FDI inflows. Although developing countries vie for more FDI, selecting a country for locating investment depends on the decision of multinational enterprises (MNE). An attempt made in this paper to identify from the literature the theoretical basis of foreign direct investment found it to be lacking. The literature emphasized more on the empirical findings of robust location determinants for understanding investment decision processes of the MNEs. It appears that countries' attractiveness improve with favorable determinants to influence MNE `s investment location decision.
Development regimes in south Asia: History and the governance conundrum
(BRAC University, 2005-08) Ludden, David
Until recently, regimes governing development occupied definite territories that delineated their relevant populations and identified authoritative leadership with distinct cultural boundaries. But development regimes today have at best ambiguous territorial moorings. Leading participants in the development process engage in rampant border crossing. Disparate institutions pursue disparate goals. There is no one guiding vision or dominant logic. Conflicts and negotiations over control of development underlie contemporary concerns with governance.
Economic inequality and paretian welfare enonomics: some insinuating questions
(BRAC University, 2005-08) Elahi, Khandakar Qudrat-I
This paper examines the academic soundness of the Pareto welfare criterion as a normative rule for evaluating alternative economic inequality scenarios and suggests that the criterion has several weaknesses, which wear off its usefulness: First, the Pareto principle is of limited use in the inequality debate, because labour markets hardly satisfy the conditions of perfect competition, the pivotal assumption of the theory. Second, the proposition, competitive equilibrium leads to' common good' of society, is difficult to defend. Third, the Paretian welfare economics barely answers the questions society demands, because perfect competition does not guarantee fairness in the determination of relative prices in the initial situation of income distribution. Fourth, the marginal productivity principle does not determine how, profits, the huge surpluses generated by the businesses, are distributed. Fifth, income distribution is a political issue, but Pareto's primary motivation was to alienate the distribution debate from policy and political discourses. Finally, the public earning structure is much more equitable than that of the private sector. This brings out a very serious question: which earning structure reflects improvement in social welfare: public or private?
Hegemony of misrepresentation: American media coverage of islam and islamic revivalism (1980-2001)*
(BRAC University, 2005-08) Ali, Shehreen Irum
Using Gramsci's notion of hegemony this paper analyses the nature, functions and wide-ranging implications of the U.S. media's coverage of Islam as represented by U.S. daily newspapers the New York Times and the Washington Times. Over the past two decades, the media coverage of Islam in these two newspapers has been unduly focused on negative portrayals of Islam and Islamic Revivalism and has produced a decontextualised picture of fringe extremist movements that have arisen in some Islamic nations. There is an operation of hegemonic ideas regarding Islam in which hegemony works to limit the frames of reference, and subsequently, the space for discourse regarding Islam within the public sphere. The ideas that the uninformed public are being socialized into regarding Islam are those that benefit the governmental elites in maintaining support for U.S. foreign policy on Islamic nations.
Examining how exchange rate fluctuation effects trade balances: emprirically establishing the correlation between exchange rate and balance of trade, the marshall-lerner condition and J effect
(BRAC University, 3/15/2012) Ali, Ratib M; Kamal, Mahsima A
This paper will examine the effects on an economy’s overall balance of trade due to fluctuations in its exchange rate, followed by how the Marshall-Lerner and J- curve come into effect in influencing a country’s current account. Econometric analyses using regression have been carried out to show the relationship between exchange rate effects and the trade balance for certain countries, showing which countries’ trade balance situation prove the Marshall-Lerner assumption to be valid and which countries’ trade balances show signs of the J curve effect, to be elaborated further. We will also examine whether some of these countries have both the Marshall-Lerner and J-effect showing up in their trade balance trends in recent years, either of the two, or if any other factors apart from their exchange rate patterns are more active in influencing certain countries’ balance of trade positions.
An inquiry into the happiness of nations: a macroeconomic analysis
(BRAC University, 8/14/2012) Ali, Ratib M; Khan, Wasiqur Rahman
This paper investigates the concept of national happiness and examines the existing literature on happiness and its causes, before using recently released data from the United Nations to construct a model that explains what makes nations happy, given macro-socioeconomic indicators of the nation.