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Comparative evaluations of the multidimensional deprivation of children can be seen as a public interest and have many possible benefits. Although children's happiness and subjective well-being is studied and discussed extensively, cross national comparison of multidimensional deprivation among children is hardly examined. Making use of data of International Survey of Child Well-being (ISCWeB), this article aims to fill this gap. With this intention present study measures average deprivation for seven domains of child lives, like, ‘Home and the people the child lives with’, ‘Things the child has’, ‘Friends of the child’, ‘Area the child lives in’, ‘School’, ‘Use of time’, and ‘Satisfaction/Happiness’. The study is also concerned about three issues, like, (i) to check if domain- specific similarities and differences in average deprivation are gender sensitive, (ii) to check if domain- specific similarities and differences in average deprivation are age responsive, and, (iii) to examine the temporal changes in average deprivation that took place in different countries. Our results suggest that on the whole, substantial variations in average deprivation are perceived for different domains of child lives which are gender sensitive as well as age sensitive. Increasing deprivation is evidenced over time across the countries. There is no indication suggesting that if a country is disadvantageous in one domain, it will also be not well in other domains.

Efficient estimation of the population size from dependent dual-record system (DRS) remains a statistical challenge in the capture-recapture type experiment. Owing to the non-identifiability of the suitable time-behavioural response variation model (denoted as Mtb) under DRS, few methods are developed in the Bayesian paradigm based on informative priors. Our contribution in this article is to develop a new integrated likelihood function from model Mtb motivated by a novel approach developed by Severini (2007). A suitable weight function on the nuisance parameter is derived with the knowledge of the direction of behavioural dependency. A pseudo-likelihood function is constructed so that the resulting estimator possess some desirable properties including negligible prior (or weight) sensitiveness. Extensive simulations show the superior performance of our proposed method to that of the existing Bayesian methods. Moreover, the proposed estimator is easy to implement from the computational perspective. Applications to two real data sets are presented. L’estimation efficace de la taille d’une population à partir d’un système à enregistrement double (SED) dépendant demeure un défi statistique de taille pour les expériences de type capture-recapture. Peu de méthodes ont été développées dans un cadre bayésien avec des lois a priori informatives, surtout à cause de la non-identifiabilité du modèle pour la variation temporelle du comportement (dénoté Mtb) avec un SED. Les auteurs développent une nouvelle fonction de vraisemblance intégrée à partir du modèle Mtb motivée par une approche novatrice proposée par Severini (2007). Ils dérivent une fonction de pondération appropriée pour les paramètres de nuisance avec la connaissance de la direction de la variation temporelle du comportement. Ils construisent une fonction de pseudo vraisemblance conférant à l’estimateur obtenu des propriétés désirables, notamment une sensibilité négligeable à la loi a priori et à la pondération. De plus, l’estimateur proposé est facile à implémenter d’un point de vue numérique. Les auteurs présentent une vaste étude de simulation démontrant les performances supérieures offertes par la méthode proposée par rapport aux méthodes bayésiennes existantes. Ils en présentent également l’application à deux jeux de données réelles.

We propose a stochastic model to develop a partial integro-differential equation (PIDE) for pricing and pricing expression for fixed type single Barrier options based on the Itô-Lévy calculus with the help of Mellin transform. The stock price is driven by a class of infinite activity Lévy processes leading to the market inherently incomplete, and dynamic hedging is no longer risk free. We first develop a PIDE for fixed type Barrier options, and apply the Mellin transform to derive a pricing expression. Our main contribution is to develop a PIDE with its closed form pricing expression for the contract. The procedure is easy to implement for all class of Lévy processes numerically. Finally, the algorithm for computing numerically is presented with results for a set of Lévy processes.

This article addresses the persistent claim that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has a negative impact on the availability of labour for agricultural operations, which has significant implications for the induced demand for child labour as a cheaper substitute for unskilled adult labour on agricultural farms in peak seasons. The study contributes to this debate by examining three issues: (i) effects of seasonality on child intensity of labour; (ii) impact of MGNREGS on child intensity of labour; and (iii) impact of seasonality and MGNREGS on human capital formation.

This paper uses household level data from National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) of India, the 55th round (1999-2000), to show that for urban male children there exists significant wage incentive for schooling, though school dropout rate and child labour incidence are not so small. The parents' level of education plays an important role in reducing this tendency; thus establishing the linkage between social and human capital outcomes in the family. We also look at the incidence of harmful and manual occupations among the child labour. Mother's education now appears as a very important factor in curbing these incidences; supporting earlier findings that women's empowerment (one important indicator of which would be female educational level) is indeed instrumental in increasing parental awareness.

With the possibility of dependence between the sources in a capture-recapture type experiment, identification of the direction of such dependence in dual system of data collection is vital. This has a wide range of applications, including in the domains of public health, official statistics and social sciences. Owing to the insufficiency of data for analyzing a behavioral dependence model in dual system, our contribution lies in the construction of several strategies that can identify the direction of underlying dependence between the two lists in the dual system, that is, whether the two lists are positively or negatively dependent. Our proposed classification strategies would be quite appealing for improving the inference as evident from recent literature. Simulation studies are carried out to explore the comparative performance of the proposed strategies. Finally, applications on three real data sets from various fields are illustrated.

The commodity futures market has a perceptible impact on its stakeholders and value chain players. The introduction of the commodity futures in India was made with the dual purpose of promoting price discovery and enhancing risk management. Hence, there is a case for policy push for further development of this market, so that its beneficial effects can be spread across many more potential market participants. As the size and the multiplier effect of the commodity derivatives market in India is still quite small by international standards, if the market is to be given a fillip for growth, the policies should be actively revenue positive. This paper analyses the impact of the Commodity Transaction Tax on the health of the Commodity Futures Market using very detailed data from the MCX. The analysis is done, in terms of four major commodities: Gold, Silver, Copper and CPO, from the perspective of (i) Turnover (both average and volatility), (ii) comparison of trading cost (both with leading international commodity futures markets as well as the securities market in India), (iii) the Bid-Ask spread as an indicator of the depth of the market, (iv) impact costs of trading, (v) tax revenue. It is obvious that the introduction of CTT has adversely impacted the market on all counts, with the impact being of such a magnitude that it is extremely unlikely that market will recover to its original position. It calls for an urgent relook at the system if the health of the market is to be restored.

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1 aims to end poverty in all its forms, everywhere. Although children experience poverty differently from adults and their needs and expectations are different, child poverty is rarely differentiated from adult poverty, and its special dimensions are often recognised. For the first time, as part of the SDGs, countries have committed to addressing child poverty specifically and directly, which is not derived from household poverty. This article aims to measure multidimensional child specific poverty in India in response to such global norms and trends focusing on the child rather than the household as a whole. We utilise the data collected in the third wave of “Children’s Worlds Survey, 2016–19” for India, which was conducted in the metro city of Kolkata in place of all over the country, bearing in mind the financial as well as the time constraints. This survey allows the yardstick of deprivation informed by subjective opinion of the children, the measure which takes us deeper into the ‘rights based’ approach. Measuring child specific poverty with this approach in the Indian context has not been attempted so far. This article is an effort to contribute to this end. We intend to identify the multidimensional poor school-going 8 years old children from the perspective of themselves following the dual cut-offs approach proposed by Alkire and Foster in 2011. Also, it allows us empirically test three issues like, (i) if the status of these children to be multidimensional poor is significantly gender (boys/girls) sensitive, (ii) if does it depend significantly on the region (northern/southern) the children belong to, and, (iii) if does it depend significantly on the type of school (government/private) the children are enrolled. Our findings show that in the metro city of Kolkata more than fifty percent of 8 years old children, enrolled in government schools, are multidimensional poor, whereas, the situation of private schools are quite better. This is alarming in terms of fulfillment of Sustainable Development Goal 1 targeting the eradication of poverty in all its forms and dimensions. However, we do not find significant gender bias while significant regional disparity is evidenced from our test results.

This paper uses household level data from National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) of India, the 55th (1999–2000) and the 61st (2004–05) rounds, to show that even with a significant wage incentive for schooling of urban children, the school drop out rate and child labour incidence are not small over this period. The parents' level of education plays an important role in reducing this tendency; thus establishing the linkage between social and human capital outcomes in the family. We also look at the incidence of harmful and manual occupations among the child labour. Mother's education appears as the more important factor in the recent round in curbing the manual work incidences; supporting earlier findings that women's empowerment (one important indicator of which would be female educational level) is indeed becoming instrumental in increasing parental awareness. Using a pooled data set, we have also analysed the changes in the impact of parental education on these decisions between 1999–2000 and 2004–05.

The use of market based instruments to stabilize the price of agricultural commodities has increased the importance of commodity derivatives market. It is important to study the variability of prices in the derivatives market because of its use as an instrument to control the risk emanating in the agricultural sector. In India trading is allowed only in futures contract for agricultural commodities. For the stakeholders in the agricultural sector in India it is important to understand the factors affecting futures price volatility. Price Volatility is a matter of concern for the participants in the futures market as well for the policymakers. Trading activity as well as time to maturity of a contract are expected to have a significant impact on futures price volatility. This study is an attempt to analyse the relationship between futures price volatility, trading activity and time to maturity for the oilseed futures contracts traded on NCDEX. Using regression analysis we have tried to find out whether futures price volatility is explained more by trading activity or by time to maturity of a contract.