The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis posits that in the early stages of economic growth environmental degradation and pollution increase. However, as a country reaches a certain level of income, the trend reverses postulating a relationship that produces an inverted U-shaped curve. Bangladesh has been recording remarkable rates of economic growth which, along with other factors, has raised the specter of a looming environmental crisis. This paper empirically investigates the EKC hypothesis for Bangladesh using data from 1971 to 2010 applying the Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration for a long run relation and the Granger causality within the vector error correction model for the short run dynamics. The results show that energy consumption is a major contributor to CO2 emissions; trade openness lowers CO2 emissions, but urbanisation worsens it. Economic growth, energy consumption, trade, and urbanisation Granger cause CO2 emissions.

The government of Bangladesh spends substantial amounts of resources on health services but dissatisfaction is often expressed over availability and  quality of these services. The study assesses, using primary information from a survey, whether the public health facilities suffer from inadequacies and identifies factors which act as barriers to effective utilisation of public health facilities. The findings show that, in general, women and the poor are more likely to use these facilities. The study notes that although physical accessibility is no longer a major barrier, economic accessibility remains as a major hurdle. The poorest are the largest users of public health facilities but they also bear a disproportionate share of the burden of ill health and sufferings. There also exist a number of governance issues which contribute to poor quality of services. The findings from the quantitative and qualitative data reveal that government efforts to improve health service delivery have not yet produced the desired results. Rebuilding hope among the patients requires that urgent governance issues be addressed to ensure that service providers are available at the facilities, minimum amount of drugs reach the patients and unofficial payments are at the lowest possible levels.

This paper examines gender discrimination in wages in India using the observed effect of productivity differences between women and men as viewed within the human capital theory. For the purpose, the study utilises micro-level information from the 50th and 66th rounds of the National Sample Survey (NSS). The data show that women participation rate in the job market is lower than that for men. As labour market participation is not likely to be random, wage equations have been estimated by applying Heckman’s selection model with two-step estimation techniques using pooled data of two independent samples taken from the two rounds. A substantial wage differential between men and women exists in the Indian labour market, both in rural and urban areas; but the difference has been declining during the post-reform period. The study observes substantial lower wage for women than for men at every educational standard and the wage gap increased significantly among women workers with higher level of education both in rural and urban areas during the period 1993-2010.

This paper investigates the relationship between poverty and migration with the 64th round household level data on employment and unemployment and migration particulars in India collected from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) in 2007-08. The paper examines whether out-migration of rural workers is a gainful option to reduce poverty. By applying the logit model, the study also investigates the effect of rural urban migration on poverty among the in-migrant households living in urban areas in the probabilistic sense. The study explores probable reasons behind migration, either temporary or permanent, in urban locations. It is observed that lack of education, pressure of big family size, small landholding and inadequate agricultural income push rural workers to out-migrate to the cities in search of jobs.