In recent years, India has set ambitious goals to become a 'Vishva Guru' or a glo... more In recent years, India has set ambitious goals to become a 'Vishva Guru' or a global leader in various fields. However, one crucial area that has often faced challenges in receiving adequate attention in the Union Budget is the health sector. Despite several promises, the health sector remains neglected in the union budget, even after the COVID-19 catastrophe. Persistent underfunding in the health sector has severely hampered its capacity to effectively utilize available funds. Despite slight budgetary increases in recent years, the allocated budget is underutilised excluding the COVID-19 period. Additionally, persistent issues such as the neglect of rural healthcare, inadequate funding for capital expenditure, and limited investment in medical R&D in the allocation of the budget persist within the budget allocation. Further, the long focus on population control, family health, and disease-led programs continues, creating deficit and negligence of the general physical health and NCDs. This trend could potentially result in catastrophic health consequences for the masses. Furthermore, the current budget allocations and announcements contradict the objectives outlined in the National Health Policy 2017, which emphasises the government's commitment to achieving holistic wellness through integrated approaches.
Background Accelerated globalization especially in the late 1980s has provided opportunities for ... more Background Accelerated globalization especially in the late 1980s has provided opportunities for economic progress in the world of emerging economies. The BRICS nations' economies are distinguishable from other emerging economies due to their rate of expansion and sheer size. As a result of their economic prosperity, health spending in the BRICS countries has been increasing. However, health security is still a distant dream in these countries due to low public health spending, lack of prepaid health coverage, and heavy out-of-pocket spending. There is a need for changing the health expenditure composition to address the challenge of regressive health spending and ensure equitable access to comprehensive healthcare services. Objective Present study examined the health expenditure trend among the BRICS from 2000 to 2019 and made predictions with an emphasis on public, prepaid , and out-of-pocket expenditures for 2035. Methods Health expenditure data for 2000-2019 were taken from the OECD iLibrary database. The exponential smoothing model in R software (ets ()) was used for forecasting. Results Except for India and Brazil, all of the BRICS countries show a long-term increase in per capita PPP health expenditure. Only India's health expenditure is expected to decrease as a share of GDP after the completion of the SDG years. China accounts for the steepest rise in per capita expenditure until 2035, while Russia is expected to achieve the highest absolute values. Conclusion The BRICS countries have the potential to be important leaders in a variety of social policies such as health. Each BRICS country has set a national pledge to the right to health and is working on health system reforms to achieve universal health coverage (UHC). The estimations of future health expenditures by these emerging market powers should help policymakers decide how to allocate resources to achieve this goal.
Despite economic progress, government efforts, and increased healthcare investments, health depri... more Despite economic progress, government efforts, and increased healthcare investments, health deprivation continues to persist in the countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS). Hence, addressing the growing demand for health financing in a sustainable way and adopting unique approaches to healthcare provision is essential. This paper aims to review publications on the existing health financing systems in the BRICS countries, analyze the core challenges associated with health financing, and explore potential solutions for establishing a sustainable health financing system. This paper adhered to the PRISMA guidelines when conducting the keyword search and determining the criteria for article inclusion and exclusion. Relevant records were obtained from PubMed Central using nine keyword combinations. Bibliometrics analysis was carried out using R software (version 4.1.3), followed by a comprehensive manual narrative review of the records. BRICS countries experien...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify, assess, rank, and compare the most influencing ... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify, assess, rank, and compare the most influencing factors in three-, four-, and five-star hotels in the Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia. Design/methodology/approach A combination of literature and interviewing of ten local experts have resulted in the identification of 46 factors. Through a web-based questionnaire survey, the identified factors were ranked. A total of 23 responses were gathered from the full population of the 47 hotels (14 five-star, 15 four-star and 18 three-star hotels) in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. A reliable overall response rate of 50 percent was achieved. Findings The most important factors affecting the operating and maintenance cost of five-star hotels are “climatic conditions” followed by “availability of the materials,” “annual energy consumption rate,” and “efficient energy consuming equipment.” Regarding four-star hotels, those factors are “star rating of the hotel” followed by “customer satisfac...
The study aimed at examining the contribution of education to personal income of male and female ... more The study aimed at examining the contribution of education to personal income of male and female employees working in the industrial sector of Odisha. It was found that education has higher impact on income, compared to agriculture. In small and micro sectors where it is more of physical work than intellectual work, education has low impact compared to efficiency acquired over years of experience. From gender perspective education has similar impact on income, but years of experience has inverse relationship. Research limitations - The research is undertaken at a point of time not over the time. The study overlooks drop out year or grade while measuring years of schooling, multiple source of income for average income calculation and experience from past non similar jobs in years of experience. Practical implications - Steps should be taken to make education more employment oriented. Education system should focus on imparting skills that are relevant to the industry. For this the sta...
Most of the health economics researches dealt with macro aspects of it. Little attention has been... more Most of the health economics researches dealt with macro aspects of it. Little attention has been given to the micro aspects of Health Economics by the researchers, government, policy makers and development planners. In this context the present study ...
Accessibility and utilization of banking services are the key elements of financial inclusion. Ac... more Accessibility and utilization of banking services are the key elements of financial inclusion. Accessibility is the gateway, whereas utilization actually matters in deriving the positive impact of financial inclusion. Plethora of studies have covered the accessibility dimension; however, we found a lack of empirical analysis of the utilization of it. This paper analyses the utilization dimension of financial inclusion using empirical evidence from the rural and tribal regions of an eastern Indian State, that is, the State of Odisha, which is among the low financially included regions of India. The paper explores the purpose/pattern, depth and frequency of utilization of formal financial services using primary data and develops empirical models explaining the demand and supply-side determinants. The findings include, the utilization of account for saving and borrowing is not satisfactory. Similarly, the depth of account use is limited due to lack of ICT knowledge. The use of bank accounts for the financial transaction is mainly performed to receive direct benefit transfers and NREGS payments rather than savings, credit and insurance purposes. The policymakers can be benefited from this research by understanding the determinants of financial utilization at the grassroots level and could take corrective measures to promote utilization.
The social sector is usually defined as dealing with social and economic activities carried out f... more The social sector is usually defined as dealing with social and economic activities carried out for the purposes of benefiting society, and in the main nonprofit, not-for-profit, philanthropic and mission based and nongovernmental organizations are associated with this sector. However, in the context of this book, the social sector is considered under “social services†in Indian budgets. The focus is on education and health, as these are two major components and have wider positive externalities for other sectors of the economy and society as a whole. They help increase the overall expansion of the economy by enhancing productivity and output, and may be funded by private or public agencies. Indian plan documents also discuss health and education under the social sector, expressing a lot of concern. Given India’s demographic dividends, with a larger amount of young people in the productive age group, education and health assume great significance on account of their real contri...
This study assesses the role of mining companies in providing social security benefits to mining ... more This study assesses the role of mining companies in providing social security benefits to mining workers and the local community. It has used primary data collected from adult mining workers in 257 households working in public and private sector mines. The result finds inadequate social security benefits are delivered to mining workers and the local people. The profit-making behavior of mining companies, casual job contracts of workers, and poor monitoring and implementation of the mining laws are primarily responsible for workers' deprivation from such fundamental rights. However, we observed that publicly managed mines are relatively better than privately managed mines in providing social security to the workers and area. In this context, recommendations of the study include strict implementation of mine laws, permanent job contract to workers, provision of employment for women both in open-cast and underground mines with proper social protection and security, necessary infrastructural development in the locality, and involvement of professional social workers to fight against the violation of human rights in the mining periphery.
Achieving Gender parity has become a great concern for the world today. It is considered as a par... more Achieving Gender parity has become a great concern for the world today. It is considered as a part of development strategy in many countries. When all people- both men and women have equal access to services and resources, enjoy equal rights, and get equal opportunity to develop capabilities without any bias or preferences , then the development of the country would be faster. It strengthens countries' abilities to grow, to reduce poverty, and to govern effectively. Despite considerable efforts in advocacy, creation of awareness, different strategies and programmes, Gender discrimination remains pervasive in many dimensions of life-worldwide. Though the nature and magnitude of the discrimination vary from country to country, in no part of the world gender parity is completely achieved in legal, social and economic fronts. Gender gaps are widespread in access to and control of resources, in economic opportunities, in power, and political voice. Women are still exploited, discrimi...
The role of money in influencing real economic activities has been a long-standing debate in macr... more The role of money in influencing real economic activities has been a long-standing debate in macroeconomics. As per the Keynesian theory, household consumption expenditure plays a significant role in promoting economic growth. Given the rapid consumption-led growth pattern in the emerging Asia Pacific region, in this article, we attempt to assess the role of money in influencing household consumption expenditure, which propels economic growth. We employ a panel data set from 2005–2018 for 10 emerging Asian economies, covering Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Given the region’s heterogeneous nature, we employ a variant of the popular St Louise equation model with autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) panel framework based on pooled mean group (PMG) and dynamic fixed effect (DFE) models developed by Pesaran and Shin to study the underlying relationships. Both PMG and DFE models suggest a strong positive rel...
Objectives : This study intends to find out the status of access to formal financial services (he... more Objectives : This study intends to find out the status of access to formal financial services (here it is banking services) in Kendrapara and Sunderagarh districts of Odisha in India. Methods/Statistical Analysis : We applied the purposive random sampling and multistage random sampling methods for selecting the districts and villages respectively. A total of 400 households are chosen proportionately from the four selected villages. Both primary and secondary data are used in the study. Primary data are collected through direct personal interviews of heads of the households using structured interview schedules. Descriptive statistical tools such as averages, percentages and graphs are used for analyzing the data. Findings : The provision of banking infrastructure in the sample districts is not adequate particularly in the sample panchayats of Sunderagarh district. A poor geographical penetration of bank branches and ATMs are found in this district in comparison to Kendrapara district...
In recent years, India has set ambitious goals to become a 'Vishva Guru' or a glo... more In recent years, India has set ambitious goals to become a 'Vishva Guru' or a global leader in various fields. However, one crucial area that has often faced challenges in receiving adequate attention in the Union Budget is the health sector. Despite several promises, the health sector remains neglected in the union budget, even after the COVID-19 catastrophe. Persistent underfunding in the health sector has severely hampered its capacity to effectively utilize available funds. Despite slight budgetary increases in recent years, the allocated budget is underutilised excluding the COVID-19 period. Additionally, persistent issues such as the neglect of rural healthcare, inadequate funding for capital expenditure, and limited investment in medical R&D in the allocation of the budget persist within the budget allocation. Further, the long focus on population control, family health, and disease-led programs continues, creating deficit and negligence of the general physical health and NCDs. This trend could potentially result in catastrophic health consequences for the masses. Furthermore, the current budget allocations and announcements contradict the objectives outlined in the National Health Policy 2017, which emphasises the government's commitment to achieving holistic wellness through integrated approaches.
Background Accelerated globalization especially in the late 1980s has provided opportunities for ... more Background Accelerated globalization especially in the late 1980s has provided opportunities for economic progress in the world of emerging economies. The BRICS nations' economies are distinguishable from other emerging economies due to their rate of expansion and sheer size. As a result of their economic prosperity, health spending in the BRICS countries has been increasing. However, health security is still a distant dream in these countries due to low public health spending, lack of prepaid health coverage, and heavy out-of-pocket spending. There is a need for changing the health expenditure composition to address the challenge of regressive health spending and ensure equitable access to comprehensive healthcare services. Objective Present study examined the health expenditure trend among the BRICS from 2000 to 2019 and made predictions with an emphasis on public, prepaid , and out-of-pocket expenditures for 2035. Methods Health expenditure data for 2000-2019 were taken from the OECD iLibrary database. The exponential smoothing model in R software (ets ()) was used for forecasting. Results Except for India and Brazil, all of the BRICS countries show a long-term increase in per capita PPP health expenditure. Only India's health expenditure is expected to decrease as a share of GDP after the completion of the SDG years. China accounts for the steepest rise in per capita expenditure until 2035, while Russia is expected to achieve the highest absolute values. Conclusion The BRICS countries have the potential to be important leaders in a variety of social policies such as health. Each BRICS country has set a national pledge to the right to health and is working on health system reforms to achieve universal health coverage (UHC). The estimations of future health expenditures by these emerging market powers should help policymakers decide how to allocate resources to achieve this goal.
Despite economic progress, government efforts, and increased healthcare investments, health depri... more Despite economic progress, government efforts, and increased healthcare investments, health deprivation continues to persist in the countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS). Hence, addressing the growing demand for health financing in a sustainable way and adopting unique approaches to healthcare provision is essential. This paper aims to review publications on the existing health financing systems in the BRICS countries, analyze the core challenges associated with health financing, and explore potential solutions for establishing a sustainable health financing system. This paper adhered to the PRISMA guidelines when conducting the keyword search and determining the criteria for article inclusion and exclusion. Relevant records were obtained from PubMed Central using nine keyword combinations. Bibliometrics analysis was carried out using R software (version 4.1.3), followed by a comprehensive manual narrative review of the records. BRICS countries experien...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify, assess, rank, and compare the most influencing ... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify, assess, rank, and compare the most influencing factors in three-, four-, and five-star hotels in the Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia. Design/methodology/approach A combination of literature and interviewing of ten local experts have resulted in the identification of 46 factors. Through a web-based questionnaire survey, the identified factors were ranked. A total of 23 responses were gathered from the full population of the 47 hotels (14 five-star, 15 four-star and 18 three-star hotels) in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. A reliable overall response rate of 50 percent was achieved. Findings The most important factors affecting the operating and maintenance cost of five-star hotels are “climatic conditions” followed by “availability of the materials,” “annual energy consumption rate,” and “efficient energy consuming equipment.” Regarding four-star hotels, those factors are “star rating of the hotel” followed by “customer satisfac...
The study aimed at examining the contribution of education to personal income of male and female ... more The study aimed at examining the contribution of education to personal income of male and female employees working in the industrial sector of Odisha. It was found that education has higher impact on income, compared to agriculture. In small and micro sectors where it is more of physical work than intellectual work, education has low impact compared to efficiency acquired over years of experience. From gender perspective education has similar impact on income, but years of experience has inverse relationship. Research limitations - The research is undertaken at a point of time not over the time. The study overlooks drop out year or grade while measuring years of schooling, multiple source of income for average income calculation and experience from past non similar jobs in years of experience. Practical implications - Steps should be taken to make education more employment oriented. Education system should focus on imparting skills that are relevant to the industry. For this the sta...
Most of the health economics researches dealt with macro aspects of it. Little attention has been... more Most of the health economics researches dealt with macro aspects of it. Little attention has been given to the micro aspects of Health Economics by the researchers, government, policy makers and development planners. In this context the present study ...
Accessibility and utilization of banking services are the key elements of financial inclusion. Ac... more Accessibility and utilization of banking services are the key elements of financial inclusion. Accessibility is the gateway, whereas utilization actually matters in deriving the positive impact of financial inclusion. Plethora of studies have covered the accessibility dimension; however, we found a lack of empirical analysis of the utilization of it. This paper analyses the utilization dimension of financial inclusion using empirical evidence from the rural and tribal regions of an eastern Indian State, that is, the State of Odisha, which is among the low financially included regions of India. The paper explores the purpose/pattern, depth and frequency of utilization of formal financial services using primary data and develops empirical models explaining the demand and supply-side determinants. The findings include, the utilization of account for saving and borrowing is not satisfactory. Similarly, the depth of account use is limited due to lack of ICT knowledge. The use of bank accounts for the financial transaction is mainly performed to receive direct benefit transfers and NREGS payments rather than savings, credit and insurance purposes. The policymakers can be benefited from this research by understanding the determinants of financial utilization at the grassroots level and could take corrective measures to promote utilization.
The social sector is usually defined as dealing with social and economic activities carried out f... more The social sector is usually defined as dealing with social and economic activities carried out for the purposes of benefiting society, and in the main nonprofit, not-for-profit, philanthropic and mission based and nongovernmental organizations are associated with this sector. However, in the context of this book, the social sector is considered under “social services†in Indian budgets. The focus is on education and health, as these are two major components and have wider positive externalities for other sectors of the economy and society as a whole. They help increase the overall expansion of the economy by enhancing productivity and output, and may be funded by private or public agencies. Indian plan documents also discuss health and education under the social sector, expressing a lot of concern. Given India’s demographic dividends, with a larger amount of young people in the productive age group, education and health assume great significance on account of their real contri...
This study assesses the role of mining companies in providing social security benefits to mining ... more This study assesses the role of mining companies in providing social security benefits to mining workers and the local community. It has used primary data collected from adult mining workers in 257 households working in public and private sector mines. The result finds inadequate social security benefits are delivered to mining workers and the local people. The profit-making behavior of mining companies, casual job contracts of workers, and poor monitoring and implementation of the mining laws are primarily responsible for workers' deprivation from such fundamental rights. However, we observed that publicly managed mines are relatively better than privately managed mines in providing social security to the workers and area. In this context, recommendations of the study include strict implementation of mine laws, permanent job contract to workers, provision of employment for women both in open-cast and underground mines with proper social protection and security, necessary infrastructural development in the locality, and involvement of professional social workers to fight against the violation of human rights in the mining periphery.
Achieving Gender parity has become a great concern for the world today. It is considered as a par... more Achieving Gender parity has become a great concern for the world today. It is considered as a part of development strategy in many countries. When all people- both men and women have equal access to services and resources, enjoy equal rights, and get equal opportunity to develop capabilities without any bias or preferences , then the development of the country would be faster. It strengthens countries' abilities to grow, to reduce poverty, and to govern effectively. Despite considerable efforts in advocacy, creation of awareness, different strategies and programmes, Gender discrimination remains pervasive in many dimensions of life-worldwide. Though the nature and magnitude of the discrimination vary from country to country, in no part of the world gender parity is completely achieved in legal, social and economic fronts. Gender gaps are widespread in access to and control of resources, in economic opportunities, in power, and political voice. Women are still exploited, discrimi...
The role of money in influencing real economic activities has been a long-standing debate in macr... more The role of money in influencing real economic activities has been a long-standing debate in macroeconomics. As per the Keynesian theory, household consumption expenditure plays a significant role in promoting economic growth. Given the rapid consumption-led growth pattern in the emerging Asia Pacific region, in this article, we attempt to assess the role of money in influencing household consumption expenditure, which propels economic growth. We employ a panel data set from 2005–2018 for 10 emerging Asian economies, covering Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Given the region’s heterogeneous nature, we employ a variant of the popular St Louise equation model with autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) panel framework based on pooled mean group (PMG) and dynamic fixed effect (DFE) models developed by Pesaran and Shin to study the underlying relationships. Both PMG and DFE models suggest a strong positive rel...
Objectives : This study intends to find out the status of access to formal financial services (he... more Objectives : This study intends to find out the status of access to formal financial services (here it is banking services) in Kendrapara and Sunderagarh districts of Odisha in India. Methods/Statistical Analysis : We applied the purposive random sampling and multistage random sampling methods for selecting the districts and villages respectively. A total of 400 households are chosen proportionately from the four selected villages. Both primary and secondary data are used in the study. Primary data are collected through direct personal interviews of heads of the households using structured interview schedules. Descriptive statistical tools such as averages, percentages and graphs are used for analyzing the data. Findings : The provision of banking infrastructure in the sample districts is not adequate particularly in the sample panchayats of Sunderagarh district. A poor geographical penetration of bank branches and ATMs are found in this district in comparison to Kendrapara district...
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Papers by Himanshu Rout