Question

I need to submit research design paper about seven or ten pages (any topic is ok) a sketch of a research project, the contribution that it will make, the methods of research, the types of data to be examined, the mode of analysis, the nature of conclusions anticipated and also, an analytic critique of research design, indicating its strengths and weaknesses in solving the research puzzle and contribution and limitation to progress in scientific knowledge of research discipline must be included.

Answer 1

Answer to the question:

Primarily, the steps of any scientific research contain the following steps: i]. Identification of the problem, ii]. Review of literature, iii]. Objectives of the study, iv]. Methodology of study, v]. Probable findings and vi].Significance of the study.

Now let us try to formulate a research design by including all the relevant steps as already mentioned above.

I]. Identification of problem:

An important topic that needs further research in the existing literature of development economics is the causality between infrastructure development and economic growth. In fact a huge number of studies have already been carried out on this issue. But like any other issue of literature, the study on this issue also needs modifications in its research design over time.

But as the question given above does not contain any subject or the case of any nation; lets us assume a country by ourselves and try to formulate a research design for that issue. Let us take the case of India; that is; the causality of infrastructure development and economic growth in the context of India.

II]. Review of literature:

Although the study on the issue of infrastructure-growth nexus has been started a long ago; but the issue got prominence with the seminal works of Aschauer(1989) and Munnell (1990). Since then many scholars tried to analyse this issue at national as well as at sub-national level; such as Demurger (2001), Simon (2017) etc.

However, study on this issue in the context of India has been very limited in the exiting literature. Therefore, with this study, an attempt has been made to remove the significant gaps in existing literature.

III]. Objectives of the study:

A comprehensive research design basically requires objectives of the research. Some of the probable objectives of proposed research would be:

A]. To empirically estimate the dynamic relationship between stock of infrastructure and economic growth in the context of India.

B]. To check whether or not the states with different stocks of infrastructure tend to converge to common steady paths or not.

IV]. Methodology of the study:

If we will study the issue in the context of India as a whole; then we might adopt a time series analysis. But if we want to study the issue in the context of India by incorporating data of states over time; then the application of panel data analysis will be proper and adequate. In this paper; let’s say we are going to analyse the issue in the context of India by incorporating the details of all the states. As mentioned above; to empirically analyse the relationship between the infrastructure and economic growth (objective no. A); let us consider the following general form of function mentioned in (1):

Y_it = f (K_it , LF_it , I_it) ……………………..      (1)

Where Y_it is the total output produced in an economy using inputs of capital (K_it), labour force (LF_it) and supporting infrastructure (I_it). Now a question can come to our mind that where comes the necessity of including the variables of labour and capital over and above stocks of infrastructure in equation (1). This is because, it is generally seen that infrastructure cannot solely influence output growth in a production process. It generally induces out growth by improving the productivity of different variables involved in production process.

However, to represent the general variables of output, labour, capital and infrastructure stocks; we could think about the variables of per capita net state domestic product, labour force participation, gross fixed capital formation and a composite index of infrastructure respectively. The composite indices of infrastructures could be formed with the help of principal component analysis (PCA). Moreover, two separate indices of infrastructures for economic and social infrastructure would be more appropriate for the analysis. The more specific form of equation (1) is presented in following equation (2):

lnPCNSDP_it=a_i+blnGfcf_it+glnLf_it+f₁lnEconinfra_it+f₂lnSocoinfra_it +u_it……    (2)

Where, PCNSDP is Per capita net state domestic product (at 2011 prices), Gfcf is gross fixed capital formation, Lf represents the labour force participation rate, Econinfra refers to composite index of economic infrastructure and Socioinfra refers to composite index of social infrastructure. a_it ,b ,g , f_1iand f­_2i are the usual coefficients. u_itis the error term. Moreover all the variables are taken in natural logarithmic (ln) form.

For the construction of composite indices through PCA; the following variables could be considered:

Variables for Economic Infrastructure

Total road length per 10,000 sq. km

Surfaced road length per 10,000 sq. km

Total length of railway routes per 1000 sq. km

Annual per capita consumption of electricity (in KWh)

Similarly for Social Infrastructure;

Variables for Social Infrastruture

Number of Primary Schools per 100 sq. km

Number of Upper Primary Schools per 100 sq. km

Number of institutes (general education) of higher education per 100 sq.km

Number of Primary Health Centers (PHCs) per 1 lakh population

                Moreover, for the analysis of convergence (Objective no. B); the test of conditional β convergence could be used in this study by taking the variables of economic growth and industrial performance as conditional variables.

                As all the variables included in this study are macroeconomic in character; therefore we have to depend on secondary source of data like: World Bank database, RBI data base, Indiastat etc. for the analysis.

V]. Probable findings:

                By looking into the studies of existing literature on this issue; it will not be very easy task to conclude beforehand the results of this study. However, one aspect that can be said with certainty that it will definitely contribute to the existing literature as there exists sufficient gaps in the existing literature in the context of this issue.

Moreover, if the convergence analysis indicates that the states converge to common steady state paths, then we can conclude that the degree of discrimination in the context of infrastructural development has been reduced over time in the context of Indian states. And if the convergence analysis does not indicate any sign of convergence, then we could say that the discrimination in infrastructure development of Indian states has been increasing over time.

VI]. Significance of the study:

With this research, it is expected that apart from developing composite indices of social and economic infrastructure; the significant gaps in existing literature like endogeneity bias, omitted variable bias etc. could be removed.

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