Category

India

Apr 24
0

Economic impact of political protests (strikes) on manufacturing firms : evidence from Bangladesh

By | Bangladesh, Case-study, India, Social dialogue

Abstract

Political protests in the form of strikes, locally known as hartal, remain quite common in the Indian subcontinent countries. Such a form of protests is associated with mass movement, intended to cause a total shutdown of economic activities and often results in coercion, violence, and damage to both public and private properties. Utilizing the World Bank Enterprise survey data of 2007 and 2013 of Bangladesh, this study examines the impacts of hartals on manufacturing firms. We find that political protests significantly increase costs for firms. Using flexible cost function based on factor analysis we see that the factor-neutral effect of strikes is positive and statistically significant, showing evidence of a reduction in firm productivity due to hartals. However, we did not find any evidence for systematic factor re-optimization by firms – in response to political strikes – suggesting that firms do not reallocate factor shares to tackle uncertain and irregular shocks like hartals.
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Apr 13
0

Social Dialogue in Developing Countries

By | Angola, Brazil, Case-study, Costa Rica, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Social dialogue, South Africa, South Korea, Zambia

This is a study of Social Dialogue in developing countries. It was commissioned by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) on behalf of the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in November 2010. It was prepared by Michael Fergus, partner in Nordic Consulting Group AS. The purpose of the study is to map experience with dialogues on socio‐economic issues between government and organisations in productive sectors, and possibly civil society organisations, in selected developing countries. In countries where a system of social dialogue has been established the study also assesses whether the experience is of interest for other countries to learn from. Norway may then consider supporting some form of interaction between countries in the South. It is not the purpose of the study to try to assess whether the Norwegian model of social dialogue can be copied into different political systems and cultures.

 

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