This paper aims at analysing the state of the Digital Economy by observing growth patterns of some Developmental Variables (GDP and GDP Per capita) and some digitisation variables. We have analysed with the help of growth models, correlation and Granger Causality amongst Developing, Developed and the World Economy during a period of recent 15 years. There are five main findings. First, the existence of strong network economies between the broadband and the mobile technologies in developed world. Second, a general decline in fixed line services amongst all three-country grouping, which is not surprising. Third, economic growth variables and growth in mobile services are integrally linked. Fourth, there is bi-way causality between some growth variables and digitisation variables. Finally, there is evidence of a digital divide because digital economy at the global is dominated by developed economies, especially in E-commerce, which is a massive chunk of the global economy.

A central issue in the context of the environment is that of its sustainability. This presumes the development of an index that encapsulates both the current st

This paper tests for market integration in 55 wholesale rice markets in India using monthly data over the period January 1970 - December 1999. The technique of Gonzalez-Rivera and Helfand (2001) is used to identify common factors across various markets. It is discovered that market integration is far from complete in India and a major reason for this is the excessive interference in rice markets by government agencies. As a result it is hard for scarcity conditions in isolated markets to be picked up by markets with abundance in supply. A number of policy implications are also considered.

The debate on growth and development has largely been argued during the seventies and eighties over the world. Subsequent to the eighties and nineties, the concern shifted towards the global environment through the emphasis on pollution and other forms of environmental degradation. Thereafter, the entire development debate has been revisited from the point of view of trade, development and the environment. The existing literature, however, is both incomplete and uncomplicated in as much as it does not relate these three vital dimensions of the trade–environment debate with each other. This paper attempts to verify empirically the triangle consisting of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), the Pollution Haven Hypothesis (PHH) and the type of economic development. EKC challenges the intuitive dichotomy between development and environment whereas PHH emphasises the implications of global foreign direct investment for the environment. The findings are in accordance with the new literature, which forms the basis of the trade, environment and economic development triangle at the global level.

We extend the analysis of Jha and Murthy (2003) to relate consumption to environmental degradation (conceived of as a composite) within a cross-country framework. We use the method of Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to construct an Environmental Degradation Index (EDI) for each country and global environmental degradation (GED) as the sum of the EDI's. We then identify outliers and influential observations among both the environmental and consumption related variables. Canonical Discriminant analysis is then used to classify development classes along environmental lines. We then estimate a simultaneous equation model to analyze the pattern of causation between per capita income, consumption and environmental degradation. We estimate a Global Environmental Kuznets curve (GEKC) as a relation between EDI ranks and ranks of the consumption-based EDI. A cubic representation is most appropriate with high-consumption countries contributing excessively to GED and middle-consumption countries slightly less. Low-consumption countries are contributing insignificantly to GED. Finally we present an alternative consumption-based Human Development Index to UNDP's income-based Human Development Index. We then compare the ranking of countries according to the consumption-based HDI ranks with their ranking according to their EDI. Two sets of data drawn from the Human Development Report (HDR) UNDP (2000) are used in the analysis. One relates to the environment and the other to developmental variables. For the formation of a composite index that would enable the estimation of a GEKC for 174 countries, we used cross-sectional data used in the HDR. The two main contributions of this paper are to build a consumption based HDI and to estimate a Global EKC based on consumption. A simultaneous equations model explains the causal structure that is responsible for Global Environmental Degradation. Further, with Canonical Discriminant Analysis it has been shown that GED does not have geo-physical basis but an anthropogenic basis. As a part of the system of equations a Global Consumption Function has been estimated that displays interesting results. In net, the paper attempts to establish that a certain 'type of development' that characterizes high consumption countries is primarily responsible for Global Environmental Degradation.

The policy of allocation of food grains under rationing has been very ad hoc in India with allocation being fixed on a 'historical basis'. This paper uses four