The study analyzed financial market integration in the five countries of South Asia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. All the variables are found to be integrated of the same order in the case of Pakistan, India and Nepal. But for Bangladesh and Sri Lanka they are of different...

This paper emphasizes bequest motives by evaluating participation patterns in micro life insurance against insurance demand and supply side factors. Based on household survey data from Sri Lanka, it presents evidence on the determinants of micro life insurance participation of low-income...

After two decades of liberalized economic policies together with early accession to WTO, Sri Lanka could not achieve the exp ected fast economic growth. Agriculture growth in particular fell sharply. WTO Doha round expects a deeper liberalization. Instead, we will benefit more from being a...

The Mullaitivu district where the Sri Lankan Army have started cluster-boming today i.e. 4 February 2009 would look exactly what Gaza strip was about a few weeks ago. The Hamas whom Israel sought to crush is too banned in some countries like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). If the UN...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Context. Sri Lanka’s economy has navigated recent market turbulence relatively well. Growth has remained solid, inflation is in mid-single digits, and the current account deficit has narrowed. From mid-May, the exchange rate came under pressure as market expectations of...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Sri Lanka’s 2009 Stand-By Arrangement was initiated at the onset of the global financial crisis. It also coincided with the ending of the country’s decades-old civil conflict. This unusual combination of circumstances made the program subject to very high economic...

KEY ISSUES Context. Macroeconomic performance has generally exceeded expectations. Real GDP grew 7.3 percent for 2013, up from 6.3 percent in 2012. Inflation declined to below 5 percent, and the external current account balance has improved. Private credit growth has been slow, however, a number...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The first chapter on monetary policy transmission examines the channels through which innovations to policy variables—policy rate or monetary aggregates—affect such macroeconomic variables as output and inflation in Sri Lanka. The effectiveness of monetary policy...

This study investigates the possibility of improving the trade balance of Sri Lanka through currency depreciation. An error correction model (ECM) was used to examine the short-term and long-term effects of nominal and real effective exchange rate depreciation on the trade balance. While there...

Polarization measures, that are used in examining the empirical relationship between ethnic divisions and violent conflict, heavily rely on mechanisms of group identification and often use somewhat arbitrary divisions of a society into ethnic groups. In this paper we construct two new measures...