A lexicographic version of the conventional utility model for consumer choice is presented. This provides a natural frame-work for the basic needs approach to development.
This paper attempts to provide baseline estimates of savings propensities by various levels and few socio-economic groups from information on 7504 urban families contained in the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) of 1979. Fitting popular specifications in the literature to a current and residual measure of household savings does not reveal a consistent and unambiguous relationship of increasing marginal propensities with rising income levels. At mean level of income, estimates based on entire data set revealed that the household’s marginal propensity ranged from 0.21 to 0.27. Average propensity to save at 0.056 across all specifications, was more robust. Excluding very low income households, which possibly overstate consumption (about 10 per,cent of the sample), all others displayed more robust marginal and average propensity estimates ranging from 0.18 to 0.21 and 0.077 respectively. Contrary to studies in India, renters (excluding the self-employed group) not only have lower average propensity but a smaller marginal propensity to save than home-owners although the former had an 18 per cent higher per capita income. Income-source criteria were employed to separate self-employed from employee head of households. Regression results indicated that the former's average and marginal savings propensities were higher than the latter's though this difference between the two groups was narrower than the one observed in some studies of the U.S.A. and India.
After reviewing the economic and religious arguments for and against financial indexation, a special indexed financial instrument has been suggested which may possibly rehabilitate the role of loans in an otherwise equity-oriented Islamic financial inter-mediation, without violating shariah requirements
Increasing competition in international markets, and increasing production costs, increases the need for greater efficiency in Basmati rice production. Levels of technical inefficiency which now exist were estimated via a frontier production function. The modal level of technical inefficiency at farm specific resource levels among 115 Basmati rice producers was 20 per cent which translated into a modal yield loss of 0.4 tons/ha. The better educated households tended to be more technically efficient; late transplanting, and late fertilizer application and water shortages contributed significantly to farm-specific technical inefficiency.
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