Rajat Acharyya – författare

Complementing trade theories with relevant trade empirics, this book covers three aspects of the study of International Economics: pure theory of trade, trade policy, and theory of Balance of Payments (BoP) and exchange rate. In the first part, it discusses the basic principles of international trade between dissimilar countries as well as between similar countries, and implications thereof in terms of welfare, income distribution, and growth. The approach taken here is distinctly different from that in most of the existing textbooks on international economics. Instead of model-specific discussions of the basic issues, it discusses the basic principles governing trade, gains from trade, and characteristics of international equilibrium in the context of a general trading environment of open economies. Subsequently, specific models of trade are introduced as alternative theoretical explanations for the basic principles of trade. In the second part, a wide range of policy issues are analysed including unilateral trade restrictions and promotions; reciprocatory trade policy choices through regionalism; product standards that regulate trade between developed and developing countries; and implications of capital inflow, FDI, fragmentation, and global value chains. In the third part, the book discusses different currency and exchange rate regimes and their implications for a country's balance of payments and foreign exchange reserves. Drawing upon the basic theories, it studies expenditure-reducing and expenditure-switching policies to correct for BoP imbalances under a pegged exchange rate regime. Finally, some reflections on the choice of exchange rate regime and optimum currency area wind up discussions of monetary issues in international economics.

This graduate textbook offers advanced and contemporary readings in international trade and economic development and provides an overview of the fundamental topics in this area. It brings together many of the issues that are considered staple reading for a course in trade and development and it offers a systematic coverage of the relevant and state of the art research on various aspects of the subject. This includes detailed analysis of important sub-topics such as: trade and labour market, trade and public economics, the theory of the second best, foreign aid, factor mobility, and regional and global welfare. It also covers international trade and labour standards, the informal labour market, and TRIPS. Aimed at post-graduate students interested in trade theory and applications in development issues, this book should also prove a valuable resource for practicing economists, policy makers, and advanced undergraduate students studying international trade. The text balances extensive coverage of available literature in the area with substantive inclusions from new research published in leading journals and volumes. It aims to fill the gap in the teaching resources and should promote further theoretical and empirical research in the subject.

Research Methodology for Social Sciences provides guidelines for designing and conducting evidence-based research in social sciences and interdisciplinary studies using both qualitative and quantitative data. Blending the particularity of different sub-disciplines and interdisciplinary nature of social sciences, this volume: Provides insights on epistemological issues and deliberates on debates over qualitative research methods; Covers different aspects of qualitative research techniques and evidence-based research techniques, including survey design, choice of sample, construction of indices, statistical inferences and data analysis; Discusses concepts, techniques and tools at different stages of research, beginning with the design of field surveys to collect raw data and then analyse it using statistical and econometric methods.With illustrations, examples and a reader-friendly approach, this volume will serve as a key reference material for compulsory research methodology courses at doctoral levels across different disciplines, such as economics, sociology, women’s studies, education, anthropology, political science, international relations, philosophy, history and business management. This volume will also be indispensable for postgraduate courses dealing with quantitative techniques and data analysis.

Given the increasing sensitivity of buyers in the richer countries towards quality of goods they consume, low-quality exports largely constrain export-growth of the developing countries. This Element documents the attempts to estimate cross-country quality variations and reviews the demand side and supply side explanations for the low-quality phenomenon. It examines how trade policies can incentivize export-quality upgrading, and discusses the underlying channels through which a reverse causality from export-quality upon within-country income or wage inequality may develop.

Research Methodology for Social Sciences provides guidelines for designing and conducting evidence-based research in social sciences and interdisciplinary studies using both qualitative and quantitative data. Blending the particularity of different sub-disciplines and interdisciplinary nature of social sciences, this volume: Provides insights on epistemological issues and deliberates on debates over qualitative research methods; Covers different aspects of qualitative research techniques and evidence-based research techniques, including survey design, choice of sample, construction of indices, statistical inferences and data analysis; Discusses concepts, techniques and tools at different stages of research, beginning with the design of field surveys to collect raw data and then analyse it using statistical and econometric methods.With illustrations, examples and a reader-friendly approach, this volume will serve as a key reference material for compulsory research methodology courses at doctoral levels across different disciplines, such as economics, sociology, women’s studies, education, anthropology, political science, international relations, philosophy, history and business management. This volume will also be indispensable for postgraduate courses dealing with quantitative techniques and data analysis.

This book deals with the impact that international trade is likely to have on the skilled-unskilled wage gap in a typical developing economy. This is the first theoretical monograph on this particular issue which has already generated substantial debate and voluminous work for the developed countries. A unique feature of this work is that it tries to explain the possibility of rising inequality across trading nations and looks at the segmented labour markets of the poor economies. It makes convincing arguments that the standard general equilibrium models, the main workhorse of trade theory, can be given a creative facelift to address a number of critical and emerging issues in the area of trade and development.

This book makes an analytical study of implications of the new set of non-tariff barriers that are forthcoming on the exports of the developing countries in the disguise of quality regulations and environmental standards. It argues that in the present era of globalization, with technological revolution in the West raising the demand for skill-intensive, high value-addition and high-quality goods, export-led growth may not be a poverty-reducing strategy in the short run.

One of his research papers co-authored with Ronald Jones, entitled “The Theory of Trade in Middle Products” and published in American Economic Review in 1982, was a seminal work in the field of international trade theory.