Economic Review

ISSN No: 1608-6627

Editorial Board

Articles in this volume
[Shankar Prasad Acharya, Ph.D. and Guna Raj Bhatta]
Abstract

The concern of climate change has been emphasized in the field of economics too owing to the challenge of adapting to global warming for sustainable development and growth. This challenge becomes dominant in the developing economies like Nepal as these countries face the combination of equator vulnerable climate change pattern, agro-based economy, scarcity of resources, and lack of influence to put forth the global agenda of climate change to international forum. In this paper, we conducted a quantitative modeling of climate change and its impact to the agricultural value addition in Nepal taking into consideration annual series of agricultural gross domestic product (AGDP), rainfall, temperature, seeds and fertilizer distribution data for the period of 36 years ranging from 1975 to 2010. The statistical inferences show the significant positive impact of rainfall to the AGDP. Nevertheless, improved seeds and chemical fertilizers are found to be insignificant. The impact of rising temperature to AGDP is cautious as we find a large negative coefficient of cyclical component of temperature, but statistically insignificant. This insignificance may be due to the nature of very little temperature variability over the study period as compared to the variability in AGDP. The country should assess the impact of climate change in national, regional, and district level to collect the spatial information and underpin the adaptive policies to the required areas.

[Prakash Kumar Shrestha, Ph.D.]
Abstract

This paper examines the money supply process in Nepal empirically on the basis of mainstream and Post-Keynesian theoretical perspectives for both pre and post-liberalization period covering the sample period of 1965/66-2009/10. The relative contribution of different components of money supply has been computed and the money supply as well as money multiplier function has been estimated. Empirical results show that disposable high powered money is found to be a major contributor to the change in monetary aggregates without any significant structural break. However, the degree of controllability of high powered money is not strong, and neither CRR nor Bank Rate has been effective monetary policy tools so far. Open market operation is found statistically significant only at 10 percent level of significance to influence disposable high powered money. On the other hand, money multipliers are affected by currency ratio, time deposits ratio and excess reserve ratio, but not by CRR. On the other hand, Granger causality based test of Post-Keynesian hypothesis reveals that money supply endogeniety cannot be ruled out. Hence, monetary policy framework needs to be changed accordingly and OMO should be strengthened further.

[Birendra Bahadur Budha]
Abstract

This paper examines the bank lending channel of monetary policy transmission in Nepal using
data during 2003-2012. Using the dynamic Arellano-Bond GMM estimation with annual data of
25 Nepalese commercial banks, this study tries to estimate the loan supply responses of Nepalese
commercial banks, depending on their balance sheet characteristics. The main results suggest that
banks play a role in Nepal’s monetary transmission mechanism. Empirical result shows that the
bank lending decreases after a monetary tightening. Bank size is found to have significant impact
on loan supply in Nepal. Similarly, liquidity in the case of private sector banks is also playing a
significant role in bank lending in response to monetary policy changes. But, capitalization is
found to have no significant impact on bank lending. The bank loan supply is also found to be
significantly affected by gross domestic product.

[T.P. Koirala, Ph.D.]
Abstract

This paper attempts to investigate the stability of time-varying parameters of the random walk model of inflation in Nepal. This study has been motivated with the Lucas Critique (1976) that the monetary/fiscal policy that is exposed to change over time affect the expectations of forward looking economic agents which hence lead to non-constant time-varying parameters of the model. Monthly time series of inflation ranging from August, 1997 to July, 2012 has been utilized for the analysis. Applying the Kalman Filter technique for the estimation of coefficients of random walk model, we found non-constant time varying parameters of both the constant and autoregressive of order one AR(1) coefficient of inflation over the long run. The changes in the expectations of rational economic agents on macroeconomic policies as a result of the problems of policy commitment, credibility and dynamic consistency might have attributed such non-constant timevarying parameters. Therefore, in addition to supply smoothing policies to control inflation in Nepal, consistent and credible policies that are not exposed to change over time may reduce the gap of actual inflation from its targets and hence trigger inflation into desired level.

[Post Raj Pokharel]
Abstract

This paper tests the influence of managerial entrenchment and capital structure decisions using Nepalese firms’ data and executives view. A majority of earlier studies show that firm leverage is negatively associated with the degree of entrenchment of managers. This study examines whether or not this is consistent in the context of Nepal. The data were taken from top listed companies on NEPSE, pharmaceuticals companies registered in Department of Drug Administration and other non-listed companies. To achieve the objective of the study, a descriptive and causal comparative research design has been administered. The managerial entrenchment index has been calculated using Principal Component Analysis. The major finding of the study shows that the managerial entrenchment increases as the percentage of CEO ownership rises. There exists positive association of managerial entrenchment and CEO percent ownership which suggests that increase in equity holding by CEO or top executives leads to lower shareholder rights or higher managerial entrenchment.