Exploring the Post-1990s Trade-Labour linkage in India:
A Set of Case Studies from West Bengal, Maharashtra and Gujarat
Measuring the welfare impact of trade liberalisation on low-income groups in a country is an interesting and yet challenging area of research. While official statistics on trade offer information on the flow of goods and services across countries, subtle changes at the grassroot level within a country is often not examined. Anecdotal evidences suggest that there have been sweeping changes in many cities and suburban areas, including villages, due to exposure to international trade, especially in the developing countries.
However, credible micro-evidences in many cases suffer largely from unavailability of data. Consequently, systematic studies aimed at measuring the impact of trade openness on regional and sub-regional economies are best approached by theoretical conjectures, as have been argued in Marjit and Kar (2008), supplemented by individual and focused case studies from different parts of the country – India in this case.
This paper examines these case studies in sufficient detail and explores the connection between openness to international trade in goods and services and financial flows and conditions of workers engaged in related occupation.
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Trade and Poverty Linkages:
A Case Study on Poultry Industry in Bangladesh
The poultry industry is crucially important in the context of agricultural growth and improvement of diets for the people in Bangladesh. This sub-sector is particularly important in the sense that it is a significant source for the supply of protein and nutrition in a household’s nutritional intake. It is an attractive economic activity as well, especially to women and poor population. Poultry farms in Bangladesh are growing fast in recent times. With a high population and income growth, urbanisation and high income elasticity of demand, the demand for poultry products is expected to increase appreciably in the future. The poultry sector in Bangladesh is very important for the reduction of poverty and to create employment opportunities for the unemployed people. Many people are directly involved for their earnings with this industry.
Most of the stakeholders in the industry view that lack of a comprehensive poultry policy guideline is a major constraint to ensure proper implementation of rules and regulations pertaining to the sustenance of the poultry industry in Bangladesh. There is a lack of efficient marketing system particularly in the rural areas. There is also a serious lack of technical know-how among the people involved in this industry. Lack of adequate laboratory testing facility is also considered as another major hurdle to inadequate quality and disease control practices. Most importantly, it appears that though poultry sector received adequate access to credit mainly from the NGOs but access to working capital by the smaller firms in particular still remains a major hurdle.
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