General Economics Division

Research & Publication (R &P) Meeting

17 November, 2005

Summary of the report

Name of the Researchers	Designation	Reporting Status	Publication	Work Completed	Work in Progress			Seminar/ Workshop	Others
Omar Haider Chowdhury	RD	Reported	-	2	1			2	1
K.A.S. Murshid	RD	On Leave
Binayak Sen	SRF	On Leave
Chowdhury Anwaruzzaman	SRF	Reported	1	-	1		-			2
Dilip Kumar Roy	RF	Reported	-	2	-		-			1
Kazi Ali Toufique	RF	On Leave
Wajid Hasan Shah	RA	Reported	1	-	1	-					3
Asadul Islam	RA	Reported	5	6	7	9					2
Division Summary			7	10	10	11					9

List of Issues under Study:

1. Macroeconomy

2. Poverty

3. Millennium Development Goals

4. PRSP

5. Trade

6. WTO

7. Tariff structure

8. Input Output Analysis

9. General Equilibrium

10. Microfinance

11. Agriculture

12. Labor Market

13. Savings and Investment

14. Applied Econometrics

15. Modeling

16. Environment

Omar Haider Chowdhury

Research Director

1. Publication:

None

2. Works Completed:

i) “Domestic Resource Generation and Public Expenditure”, Paper presented at the seminar on National Budget for 2005-06 and PRSP held on May 29, 2005 at NEC building, Dhaka.

ii) “Poverty Monitoring and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Bangladesh: Budget Allocation and Efficiency”, Paper Presented at the Training Workshop on Poverty Monitoring and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Bangladesh jointly organized by the BIDS and the WB held during June 19, 20, 21, 2005.

3. Work in Progress:

i) “Affordability to Finance Poverty Reduction Programs”, Paper Presented at the Preliminary Project Workshop of PRCB-II held on 08 November, 2005 at the BIDS Conference Room.

4. Seminar Participation:

5. Other Involvements:

i) Chairman, Library Committee.

Chowdhury Anwaruzzaman

Senior Research Fellow

1. Publication:

None

2. Works Completed:

None

3. Work in Progress:

i) Tariff Evasion and Input-output Analysis

4. Seminar Participation:

None

5. Others:

Newspaper Publications:

i) Some Aspects of Inflation in Bangladesh, Guardian Magazine

Other Involvements:

i) Division Chief GED

ii) Chairman Honorarium Committee

Dilip K. Roy

Research Fellow

1. Publication:

None

2. Works Completed:

None

3. Work in Progress:

i) Impact of the End of MFA and Involvement of Worst Form of Child Labor: The Case of Bangladesh

ii) Trade Liberalization and Manufacturing Employment: A Disaggregated Analysis

4. Seminar Participation:

None

5. Other Involvements:

i) Prepared a research proposal on “Governance, Export Competitiveness and Economic Growth in Bangladesh” has been reviewed by Dr. C. Anwaruzzaman, Division Chief, GED.

Wajid Hasan Shah

Research Associate

1. Publication:

i) Book Review "Bureaucrats in Business" Accepted for Publication for the forthcoming issue of BDS.

2. Works Completed:

None

3. Work in Progress:

i) "Dhaka Stock Exchange" (for forthcoming Samikkhya)

4. Seminar Participation:

None

5. Other Involvements:

None

Asadul Islam

Research Associate

1. Publication:

ii) “SAFTA (South Asian Free Trade Agreement): Perspectives of Private sector and Government of Bangladesh” accepted for publication as a chapter in the book titled as "Development, Inequalities and Economic Reforms - Essays in Honour of Amiya Kumar Bagchi”, Vol. II, SAGE publication, New Delhi, 2006.

iii) “Job Displacement Effects of Immigration on Canadian-born: A Microeconomic Perspective”, Bangladesh Development Studies (BDS), forthcoming in Vol. XXIX.

2. Works Completed:

i) “SAFTA: In the light of Bilateral FTA’s Discussion on SAARC Summit 2005”, paper to be presented at the National Consultation on Regional Economic Cooperation in South Asia, organized by CUTS Centre for International Trade, Economics & Environment (CUTS-CITEE)-India, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES)-India, Dhaka, November 21-23, 2005

ii) “Public Debt: issues, Trends and perspectives”, submitted to Director General, BIDS for seminar on Bangladesh economy.

iii) Labour Force Participation and Wage Earnings Equation of Immigrants in Canada submitted for the Research Report, BIDS.

iv) Agriculture Sector Liberalization in Bangladesh: The Prospects of Rice farmer, coming as a policy brief before the Hong Kong Ministerial, to be published by Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS), India

v) Savings and Investment in Bangladesh, submitted to The Daily Star for its next anniversary issue.

vi) Submitted a project proposal on “Diversification of Bangladesh’s Export: Assessing implications of the EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards, with Nazneen Ahmed.

3. Work in Progress:

i) Working on “Conducting Policy research on the crucial issues of socially Disadvantaged Women and their Children” for Government of Bangladesh and UNDP.

ii) Labor Market Effects of Immigration: Evidence from Canada” with Kien C. Tran, for submission to Canadian Journal of Economics, with Kien C tran.

iii) An Examination of export Devaluation Relationship in Bangladesh: An Application of Cointegration and Error Correction Modeling, with Golam Mortaza.

iv) Multivariate ARIMA Specification of the Flexible Accelerator Model, for submission to Journal of Savings and Development.

v) Macroeconomic Policy in PRSP: Impact on Children (for forthcoming Samikkhya).

vi) Effects of Microfinance on socio-economic well being, for journal article

vii) Assessing Economy-wide Impacts of Micro Interventions in the Inland Fishery Sector: A Case Study of Community-based Fishery Management (CBFM) in Bangladesh, with Salma Begum, for journal article.

4. Seminar Participation:

(a) International Conference Presentation:

i) “SAFTA: Perspectives of Private and Government Sector of Bangladesh” Paper presented in the roundtable “Achieving SAFTA: Public-Private Partnership” organized by Commonwealth Business Council and Council for Social Development, India, December 15-16, 2004, New Delhi, India.

ii) “Demand for Water and Sanitation in the Slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh”, an analytical paper presented at the 10^th Biannual Research and Training Workshop, Bangalore, India, July 21-26, 2005

(b) National Conference /seminar Presentation:

i) Presented paper “ Domestic Public Debt: Issues and Trends”, seminar on “National Budget and PRSP” held at NEC auditorium at the Planning Commission, Bangladesh, May 29, 2005, organized by BIDS.

ii) Presented paper “ Labor Market Effects of Immigration”, in Fifth Chittagong, Bangladesh, Conference on Mathematical Economics and its Relevance for Development” organized by Research Centre for mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Chittagong, Chittagong, Bangladesh, December 19-20, 2004.

iii) Presented a key note paper on “ Creating a Child Sensitive Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper in Bangladesh’, organized by Save the Children, UK, Sweden and Denmark at BRAC centre Inn, December 2, 2004

(c) International Seminar/Conference Attended:

i) Seminar on “Economic Cooperation in South Asia” held on 7-09 May 2005 in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

ii) “WTO Doha Round and South Asia: Linking Civil Society with Trade Negotiations”, organized by Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), March 9-10, 2005, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

(d) Training:

i) Completed “ Certificate course on Poverty and MDG Monitoring” jointly organized by World Bank Institute and BIDS, June 21-23, 2005 in Dhaka, Bangladesh

ii) Completed “Certificate Course on MDG Needs Assessment Methodology” jointly organized by Economic Research Group (ERG) and BRAC, January 11-15, 2005 in Dhaka, Bangladesh

5. Other Involvements:

(a) Newspaper Publications:

i) “The WTO Hong Kong Ministerial in the context of Bangladesh”, Guardian, a Monthly Journal, July 2005.

ii) “Prospects of Economic Gains from SAFTA” published by The Financial Express in its editorial page, February 23, 2005.

iii) “The Postponement of SAARC summit: Prospects for SAFTA”, published by E-mela (www.e-mela.com) February 14 2005.

(b) Other activities:

i) Conducted Applied econometrics symposium for BIDS researchers

ii) Guest lecture for the Department of Economics, University of Dhaka, Microeconomic Theory

iii) Honorary Member, Library committee

iv) Honorary member, Secondary Data Management of BIDS