The competitive allocation of labor across different sectors of an economy may not be socially optimal when one sector uses foreign capital. We argue that a suitably designed government intervention is required to restrict the sectors to their optimal size and maximize national welfare. Such a...

We bring in hierarchical education and skill formation within a standard Jonesian specific-factor model of production and trade for a developing economy. There are three types of labor, unskilled, medium skilled and high-skilled. The unskilled can only develop into medium-skilled and...

International joint ventures (JV) are popular institutional forms chosen by the less developed countries (LDCs) to attract foreign Investments. In this paper we describe a set up where a multinational firm (MNF) decides on the volume of investment and the LDC gov-ernment offers a package...

Foreign investment in developing countries and in economies in transition may be discouraged by fluctuations in the value of local currencies, particularly when risk sharing markets, such as currency future markets are missing. International joint ventures can be regarded as an institution for...

We argue, in a model with trade and unemployment, that exogenous inflow of foreign capital may deliver the desired result when it flows to a protected intermediate-goods sector. Whether foreign investment should be directed towards an intermediate-goods sector or to a final-goods sector depends...

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...

We build up a simple Ricardian trade model with imperfection in the market for credit which affects the pattern of production. Workers/entrepreneurs are endowed with different levels “capital” and need to borrow to produce the credit intensive good. We argue that in such a framework...

The quest for benefit from existing wealth or by seeking privileged benefit through influence over policy is known as rent seeking. Much rent seeking activity involves government and political decisions and is therefore in the domain of political economy, although it can also take place in...

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.