We consider a situation where the relatively ‘poor’ are concerned about their relative income status with respect to a relevant reference group. Such a concern is explicitly introduced in a utility function to study the consumption and saving behavior of the poor in terms of a static and...

Using the hybrid of Heckscher - Ohlin and Specific Factor models of trade we show that economic recession led shock results in a loss for both capitalists and skilled workers. Some of the unionized unskilled workers lose formal sector employment and move onto the informal sector. In case capital...

The existing literature on poverty has discussed about the conflict between income-based measure and nutrition-based measure. However, the role of social inequality in influencing individual’s consumption and inducing greater consumption of the so called status good has been relatively...

The conflict between the income based and nutrition based estimates of poverty is a widely debated issue in economic literature. This paper, using a two commodity framework, attempts to show that in presence of inequality, a status driven utility function can reconcile the conflict between the...

Informal economy involving unrecorded, unregistered, extra legal activities employs majority of the workforce in the developing world. Such extra legal existence of informal manufacturing and service sectors is facilitated through extortion by agents of political forces in power. Such extortion...

In presence of inequality a status driven utility function reconciles the conflict between income based and nutrition based measures of poverty. Moreover, it can explain why the poor tend to save less, an established empirical fact in the developing countries. The result is independent of the...

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model where trade has a direct and positive impact on growth rate of two trading nations beyond the level effect. We use the idea of virtual trade in intermediates induced by non- overlapping time zones and show how trade can increase the equilibrium...

Informal economy involving unrecorded, unregistered, extra legal activities employs majority of the workforce in the developing world. Such extra legal existence of informal production is facilitated through extortion by agents of political forces in power. Also extortion activities themselves...

We propose a two-country growth model of intermediate business-services trade that captures the role of time zone differences. It is shown that a time-saving improvement in intermediate business-services trade involving production in different time zones can have a permanent impact on productivity.

We use the HOS model of international trade to find a link between trading (including domestic trading or retailing) costs and pattern of trade, not just its effect on volume of trade. Even if we use symmetric iceberg type trading costs, unlike conventional unit cost approach, we generate...