Abstract
There appears to be long silence in this field ever since the eighties. It is acknowledged perhaps that the yardstick of measuring surplus labour is highly subjective. This created serious doubts as to how to build up major theoretical and empirical conundrums on a subjective ground. The advent of efficiency analysis provided a rigid norm for defining what is “optimal” and hence “sub-optimal”. However, the only problem of efficiency is that it is a radial measure. Ray (in: Hosh, Neogi (eds) Theory and application of productivity and efficiency: econometric and DEA approach, Macmillan India Limited Chennai, 2005) introduced sub-vector efficiency to tackle this problem. Basically, the sub-vector defines the input requirement set when some of the inputs are fixed. Sub- vector efficiency is conditional to the choice of the prefixed inputs. This can then be used for assessing the extent of surplus labour. This method has been used by Sengupta et al. (Sarvekshana 29(95), 20–39, 2009, 2011) on a limited sphere. Our aim is to extend this methodology to the NSSO 73rd round data, covering all the states of India and with entire informal sector. We found significant instances of surplus labour. Among the factors that explain the surplus labour are the constraints that the firm have to deal with. Smallness can curb the desire to fly with open wings.
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Notes
One can find the names of Sir Arthur Lewis, Theodore W. Schultz and Amartya Kumar Sen in this regard.
Even this assumption is fraught with a number of inconsistencies. A Banerjee and Duflo (2019) have shown that migration is a very complex decision never simply dependent on economic questions.
Georgescu-Roegen (1960) “Economic theory and agrarian economics”, Oxford Economic Papers 12(1): 1–40.
Sengupta, Atanu, Soumendra Kishor Dutta, Susanta Mondal (2011), “Male Female Quality Differential in Informal Service Sector: A State Level Study from India”, Indian Economic Review, Vol. XXXXVI, No. 1, 2011, pp. 153–176.
The justification of the value of pseudo-R2 is given in the Appendix.
It might be difficult to ascertain job boundaries of various types of labours and their use. Thus overemployment can easily accrue.
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Appendix
Appendix
(https://www.stata.com/support/faqs/statistics/pseudo-r2/)
In the STATA programme for estimating the pseudo-R2, we use the formula
where L0 and L1 are the constant-only and full model log-likelihoods, respectively.
So far as discrete distributions are concerned, the log likelihood is the log of a probability, making it is always non-positive. Thus for such distributions, 0 ≥ L1 ≥ L0, implying 0 ≤ L1/L0 ≤ 1, hence 0 ≤ pseudo-R2 ≤ 1.
For continuous distributions the issue is different. Here the log likelihood is the log of a density. It is easily seen that density functions can be greater than 1 (cf. the normal density at 0) Thus the log likelihood can be positive or negative. Similarly, mixed continuous/discrete likelihoods like tobit can also have a positive log likelihood.
If L1 > 0 and L0 < 0, then L1/L0 < 0, and 1 − L1/L0 > 1.
If L1 > L0 > 0 and then L1/L0 > 1, and 1 − L1/L0 < 0.
So, if the above formula is used for pseudo-R2, it is possible to get it > 1 or < 0 for continuous or mixed continuous/discrete likelihoods like tobit.
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Sengupta, A., Seth, U. Voice After a Long Silence: Measuring Surplus Labour in the India’s Unorganised Sector. Ind. J. Labour Econ. 65, 951–966 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41027-022-00404-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41027-022-00404-7