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Ram Singh

Delhi School of Economics, Economics, Faculty Member

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Economist
Address: Providence, Rhode Island, United States

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shivani dechamma

University of Agricultural Sciences,GKVK,Bangalore

PDFSR (ICAR),Modipuram,Meerut

Chandan Hazarika

Deepanshu Patel

mahantesh shirur

Geofrey Thobias

UNIVERSITY OF IRINGA (FORMERLY THE CONSTITUENT COLLEGE OF TUMAINI UNIVERSITY )

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Papers by Ram Singh

Cost Benefit Analysis and Marketing of Mushroom in Haryana

Agricultural Economics Research Review, 2010

The study conducted in the districts of Sonepat and Gurgaon in Haryana during the year 2003-04, h... more The study conducted in the districts of Sonepat and Gurgaon in Haryana during the year 2003-04, has analysed the cost, returns and break-even point of mushroom production on different categories of farms, and has investigated the existing marketing system along with marketing cost, margins and marketing efficiency. Simple tabular analysis, benefit-cost analysis, break-even level, price spread and marketing efficiency have been used to draw the inference. The study has revealed that (i) the fixed capital investment is more than double in large and medium farms as compared to the small farms, (ii) the use of compost has a positive relationship with the farm size, (iii) there exists a positive relationship between mushroom production and farm size, (iv) large farmers have lowest cost of mushroom production as compared to small and medium farms due to efficient utilization of fixed farm resources, (v) the producer share in consumer rupee is highest in channel-IV, followed by channels II...

Effects of Courts' Errors on Efficiency of Liability Rules: When Individuals are Imperfectly Informed

Efficiency property of liability rules when courts make errors in estimation of the harm suffered... more Efficiency property of liability rules when courts make errors in estimation of the harm suffered by the victim is studied. Effects of courts' errors on parties' behaviour regarding the levels of care they take to prevent the accident and their decisions to buy information about courts' errors are analyzed. A condition called negligent injurer's liability is introduced. When courts make upper-biased errors, condition negligent injurer's liability is shown to be necessary and sufficient for a simple liability rule to motivate the parties to take efficient care and simultaneously not to spend on information. The notion of simple liability rules is also introduced. Analysis is carried out in a quite broader framework. In particular, the standard assumption that costs of care and expected loss functions are such that total costs of accident are minimized at a unique configuration of care levels is relaxed.

Efficient Liability Rules When Courts Make Errors in Estimation of the Harm: Complet Characterization

ABSTRACT

Causation, Economic Efficiency and the Law of Torts

Working papers, 2002

In standard models dealing with liability rules, generally, the proportion of accident loss a par... more In standard models dealing with liability rules, generally, the proportion of accident loss a party is required to bear does not depend upon the 'causation' - the extent to which the care or lack of care on the part of the party contributed to the loss. As a matter of legal doctrine, this ...

Causation-consistent'liability, economic efficiency and the law of torts

International Review of Law and Economics, 2007

Some legal scholars have argued that the standard modeling of liability rules is inconsistent wit... more

The Efficiency of Comparative Causation

Comparative causation is the only tort regime that allows parties to share an accident loss in eq... more Comparative causation is the only tort regime that allows parties to share an accident loss in equilibrium. The sharing of an accident loss between a nonnegligent injurer and his nonnegligent victim spreads activity level and R&D incentives between prospective tortfeasors and their victims. This is an effect that is never observed under the other negligence and strict liability based regimes. In spite of these interesting attributes, the existing literature left open the question as to whether loss sharing was able to maintain optimal care incentives for both parties. In this paper, we address this unresolved issue in the literature, considering the efficiency of loss-sharing under comparative causation. JEL classification: K13, K32.

Economic Analysis of Eminent Domain: Takings of Land by Self-interested Governments

Journal of Law and Economics, 2018

In this paper, we model and examine the effects of two salient features of the eminent domain law... more In this paper, we model and examine the effects of two salient features of the eminent domain law and its use. First, the compensation is less than 'full'. Second, the government is not a perfect agent of the society. Once these features are factored in, several claims in the existing literature do not hold. Our results question the 'fiscal-illusion' theory. We show that the full compensation ensures efficiency neither of the takings nor of the investment decisions. Moreover, things can get worse with tightening of the budget constraints. However, under-compensation combined with the provision of restitution delivers a better outcome-in terms of investment choices by the owners as well as the taking decisions and project choices by the government. Further, we show that fixed-compensation schemes generally are not efficient even if the government is benevolent, but under-compensation can still deliver outcome more efficient than the full compensation.

Economic Efficiency

Marciano A., Ramello G. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY., 2020

The most of economic analysis of law uses economic efficiency as a normative criterion or for th... more The most of economic analysis of law uses economic efficiency as a normative criterion or for the purpose of positive analysis. The term Economic Efficiency refers to the relationship between aggregate benefits and costs to the individuals concerned. Among the widely used efficiency criteria are the Pareto Optimality, the Kaldor-Hicks, the Cost-Benefit and the Wealth Maximization criterion. In this essay, we discuss economic efficiency as a tool for the social choice among the alternative legal rules. Discussion is carried out by using illustrative examples. We show that in several contexts the efficiency can serve as a useful tool for comparing the legal rules. However, it has serious limitations as well. In several situations, the efficiency criteria can fail to compare legal rules or can lead to contradictory rankings. Moreover, the assumptions underlying some of the efficiency criteria do not hold always. We discuss merits and demerits of various efficiency criteria. It shown that in the real world, economic efficiency has limitations as a guide for making social choice from among the legal institutions.

Cost Overruns in Roads and Railways

India Policy Forum, 2011

This paper empirically examines relative delays and cost overruns in Road and Railways projects. ... more This paper empirically examines relative delays and cost overruns in Road and Railways projects. The proposed empirical framework in the paper offers several testable predictions. These predictions are tested with two large and unique datasets. Among other things, we show that: compared to other projects, civil construction projects have experienced higher cost overruns and longer delays. Compared to the Railways, as a result of standardization the Road sector has significantly superior project delivery system. Within road sector, PPP projects in India are experiencing shorter delays but higher cost overruns!

“Cost Overruns in Public Procurement of Infrastructure: Roads and Railways”, India Policy Forum, 2010-11, Vol 7, pp 97-158.

Delays and Cost Overruns in Infrastructure Projects: Extent, Causes and Remedies

Somanathan for their comments and suggestions. Atika Gupta and Nitya Mittal provided excellent re... more Somanathan for their comments and suggestions. Atika Gupta and Nitya Mittal provided excellent research support. Digvijay Negi, Nitin Madan and Pawan Gopalakrishnan provided crucial help in compilation of an extensive dataset. Finally, I thank the Centre for Development Economics for research and institutional support. Ram Singh ([email protected]) is with the department of economics at the Delhi School of Economics.

Book Review: Markets and Governments

Book Review of Kaushik Basu, Pulin B. Nayak, Ranjan Ray (eds.), Markets and Governments, OUP, Del... more

On The Existence and Efficiency of Equilibria Under Liability Rules

While the focus of mainstream economic analysis of liability rules remains on negligence liabilit... more While the focus of mainstream economic analysis of liability rules remains on negligence liability, recently some legal scholars have argued for the sharing of liability. In this paper, our first objective is contribute to the debate regarding the desirability of the sharing of liability for the accident loss.

Comparative Vigilance: A Simple Guide

by Ram Singh and Allan Feldman

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2011

In this paper we discuss a new tort liability rule, which we call super-symmetric comparative neg... more In this paper we discuss a new tort liability rule, which we call super-symmetric comparative negligence and vigilance. When both injurer and victim in an accident are negligent, it provides for liability shares that depend on the degrees of negligence of the two parties, similar to the standard comparative negligence rule. Unlike standard liability rules, however, when both parties are vigilant (i.e., taking more care than is efficient), the rule provides for liability shares that depend on the parties' degrees of vigilance. Moreover, when one party is negligent and the other is non-negligent, our rule provides for variable liability shares, that respond to both carefulness and carelessness of the parties. Our liability rule is equitable; it has no discontinuity at the efficient point where both parties are just meeting their standards of care; and it provides incentives that guarantee the injurer and victim will choose the efficient care levels. This paper does not include theorems and proofs; rather it explains the results with the aid of a simple example, laid out in an easy 3 x 3 table.

RISK, INFORMATIONAL ASYMMETRY AND PRODUCT LIABILITY: An Enquiry Into Conflicting Objectives

Pacific Economic Review, 2009

Risky products inflict two costs on society; the accident and the insurance costs. The expansion ... more Risky products inflict two costs on society; the accident and the insurance costs. The expansion in the scope of product liability since the late 1970s has increased the cost of thirdparty liability insurance. However, the economic analysis has, traditionally, focused on only the accident costs. Some recent works suggests a strict trade-off between minimization of the accident costs and the insurance costs. In this paper, we extend the analysis by considering both types of costs. An efficiency characterization of product liability rules is provided by assuming informational asymmetry about the risk. We show that it is possible to achieve efficiency with respect to the insurance costs as well as the care levels.

Comparative Causation and Comparative Vigilance

American Law and Economics Review, 2009

A growing body of literature suggests that courts and juries are inclined toward division of liab... more A growing body of literature suggests that courts and juries are inclined toward division
of liability between two strictly non-negligent or “vigilant” parties. In this paper,
we explore the economic efficiency of liability rules based on comparative vigilance.
We devise rules that are efficient and that reward vigilance. Commonly used liability
rules have discontinuous liability shares. We develop a liability rule, which we
call the “super-symmetric rule,” that is both efficient and continuous, that is based
on comparative negligence when both parties are negligent and on comparative vigilance
when both parties are vigilant, and that is always responsive to increased care.

Land Acquisition: Abuses and Inefficiency

Drafts by Ram Singh

Does choice of procurement contract matter for cost and quality of infrastructure? Comparison of cost and quality of roads

International Growth Centre, LSE, Working Paper, No S-89209-INC-2, 2018

Does choice of procurement contract matter for cost and quality of infrastructure? We model the ... more Does choice of procurement contract matter for cost and quality of infrastructure? We model the incentive structures induced by Public Private Partnerships (PPPs or P3) contracts and the traditional procurement contracts used for infrastructure. Predictions
emanating from the model are tested using a dataset of 313 national highways projects in India. The empirical analysis examines validity of a widely held belief that PPPs are better than the traditional contracts in terms of the cost and quality of infrastructure. We show that the construction costs are significantly higher for PPPs than the traditionally
procured (non-PPP) highways. For a subset of projects, we compare the quality of PPPs with the non-PPP roads. Our analysis shows that the PPPs encourage life-cycle approach towards project costs. Moreover, the quality of PPP roads is better than the traditional highways

Public Private Partnerships Vs. Traditional Roads: Project Delivery Time, Costs and Quality

The Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) have become a mainstay of plans of the Centre and the Stat... more The Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) have become a mainstay of plans of the Centre and the State governments towards infrastructure development. We empirically examine a widely held belief that PPPs are better than the traditional approach towards infrastructure in that they can deliver superior quality infrastructure at a faster rate and lower costs. Using a dataset of more than three hundred national highways projects, we compare the performance of the PPP and the traditional government (non-PPP) highway projects. We show that the project delays are relatively short for PPPs, but the cost overruns are significantly higher for PPPs than for the government managed highway projects. The data and other available evidence suggest that the quality of PPP roads is better than the traditional highways. However, the overall quality of road services under PPPs is deficient on several counts.

Cost Benefit Analysis and Marketing of Mushroom in Haryana

Agricultural Economics Research Review, 2010

The study conducted in the districts of Sonepat and Gurgaon in Haryana during the year 2003-04, h... more The study conducted in the districts of Sonepat and Gurgaon in Haryana during the year 2003-04, has analysed the cost, returns and break-even point of mushroom production on different categories of farms, and has investigated the existing marketing system along with marketing cost, margins and marketing efficiency. Simple tabular analysis, benefit-cost analysis, break-even level, price spread and marketing efficiency have been used to draw the inference. The study has revealed that (i) the fixed capital investment is more than double in large and medium farms as compared to the small farms, (ii) the use of compost has a positive relationship with the farm size, (iii) there exists a positive relationship between mushroom production and farm size, (iv) large farmers have lowest cost of mushroom production as compared to small and medium farms due to efficient utilization of fixed farm resources, (v) the producer share in consumer rupee is highest in channel-IV, followed by channels II...

Effects of Courts' Errors on Efficiency of Liability Rules: When Individuals are Imperfectly Informed

Efficiency property of liability rules when courts make errors in estimation of the harm suffered... more Efficiency property of liability rules when courts make errors in estimation of the harm suffered by the victim is studied. Effects of courts' errors on parties' behaviour regarding the levels of care they take to prevent the accident and their decisions to buy information about courts' errors are analyzed. A condition called negligent injurer's liability is introduced. When courts make upper-biased errors, condition negligent injurer's liability is shown to be necessary and sufficient for a simple liability rule to motivate the parties to take efficient care and simultaneously not to spend on information. The notion of simple liability rules is also introduced. Analysis is carried out in a quite broader framework. In particular, the standard assumption that costs of care and expected loss functions are such that total costs of accident are minimized at a unique configuration of care levels is relaxed.

Efficient Liability Rules When Courts Make Errors in Estimation of the Harm: Complet Characterization

ABSTRACT

Causation, Economic Efficiency and the Law of Torts

Working papers, 2002

In standard models dealing with liability rules, generally, the proportion of accident loss a par... more In standard models dealing with liability rules, generally, the proportion of accident loss a party is required to bear does not depend upon the 'causation' - the extent to which the care or lack of care on the part of the party contributed to the loss. As a matter of legal doctrine, this ...

Causation-consistent'liability, economic efficiency and the law of torts

International Review of Law and Economics, 2007

Some legal scholars have argued that the standard modeling of liability rules is inconsistent wit... more

The Efficiency of Comparative Causation

Comparative causation is the only tort regime that allows parties to share an accident loss in eq... more Comparative causation is the only tort regime that allows parties to share an accident loss in equilibrium. The sharing of an accident loss between a nonnegligent injurer and his nonnegligent victim spreads activity level and R&D incentives between prospective tortfeasors and their victims. This is an effect that is never observed under the other negligence and strict liability based regimes. In spite of these interesting attributes, the existing literature left open the question as to whether loss sharing was able to maintain optimal care incentives for both parties. In this paper, we address this unresolved issue in the literature, considering the efficiency of loss-sharing under comparative causation. JEL classification: K13, K32.

Economic Analysis of Eminent Domain: Takings of Land by Self-interested Governments

Journal of Law and Economics, 2018

In this paper, we model and examine the effects of two salient features of the eminent domain law... more In this paper, we model and examine the effects of two salient features of the eminent domain law and its use. First, the compensation is less than 'full'. Second, the government is not a perfect agent of the society. Once these features are factored in, several claims in the existing literature do not hold. Our results question the 'fiscal-illusion' theory. We show that the full compensation ensures efficiency neither of the takings nor of the investment decisions. Moreover, things can get worse with tightening of the budget constraints. However, under-compensation combined with the provision of restitution delivers a better outcome-in terms of investment choices by the owners as well as the taking decisions and project choices by the government. Further, we show that fixed-compensation schemes generally are not efficient even if the government is benevolent, but under-compensation can still deliver outcome more efficient than the full compensation.

Economic Efficiency

Marciano A., Ramello G. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY., 2020

The most of economic analysis of law uses economic efficiency as a normative criterion or for th... more The most of economic analysis of law uses economic efficiency as a normative criterion or for the purpose of positive analysis. The term Economic Efficiency refers to the relationship between aggregate benefits and costs to the individuals concerned. Among the widely used efficiency criteria are the Pareto Optimality, the Kaldor-Hicks, the Cost-Benefit and the Wealth Maximization criterion. In this essay, we discuss economic efficiency as a tool for the social choice among the alternative legal rules. Discussion is carried out by using illustrative examples. We show that in several contexts the efficiency can serve as a useful tool for comparing the legal rules. However, it has serious limitations as well. In several situations, the efficiency criteria can fail to compare legal rules or can lead to contradictory rankings. Moreover, the assumptions underlying some of the efficiency criteria do not hold always. We discuss merits and demerits of various efficiency criteria. It shown that in the real world, economic efficiency has limitations as a guide for making social choice from among the legal institutions.

Cost Overruns in Roads and Railways

India Policy Forum, 2011

This paper empirically examines relative delays and cost overruns in Road and Railways projects. ... more This paper empirically examines relative delays and cost overruns in Road and Railways projects. The proposed empirical framework in the paper offers several testable predictions. These predictions are tested with two large and unique datasets. Among other things, we show that: compared to other projects, civil construction projects have experienced higher cost overruns and longer delays. Compared to the Railways, as a result of standardization the Road sector has significantly superior project delivery system. Within road sector, PPP projects in India are experiencing shorter delays but higher cost overruns!

“Cost Overruns in Public Procurement of Infrastructure: Roads and Railways”, India Policy Forum, 2010-11, Vol 7, pp 97-158.

Delays and Cost Overruns in Infrastructure Projects: Extent, Causes and Remedies

Somanathan for their comments and suggestions. Atika Gupta and Nitya Mittal provided excellent re... more Somanathan for their comments and suggestions. Atika Gupta and Nitya Mittal provided excellent research support. Digvijay Negi, Nitin Madan and Pawan Gopalakrishnan provided crucial help in compilation of an extensive dataset. Finally, I thank the Centre for Development Economics for research and institutional support. Ram Singh ([email protected]) is with the department of economics at the Delhi School of Economics.

Book Review: Markets and Governments

Book Review of Kaushik Basu, Pulin B. Nayak, Ranjan Ray (eds.), Markets and Governments, OUP, Del... more

On The Existence and Efficiency of Equilibria Under Liability Rules

While the focus of mainstream economic analysis of liability rules remains on negligence liabilit... more While the focus of mainstream economic analysis of liability rules remains on negligence liability, recently some legal scholars have argued for the sharing of liability. In this paper, our first objective is contribute to the debate regarding the desirability of the sharing of liability for the accident loss.

Comparative Vigilance: A Simple Guide

by Ram Singh and Allan Feldman

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2011

In this paper we discuss a new tort liability rule, which we call super-symmetric comparative neg... more In this paper we discuss a new tort liability rule, which we call super-symmetric comparative negligence and vigilance. When both injurer and victim in an accident are negligent, it provides for liability shares that depend on the degrees of negligence of the two parties, similar to the standard comparative negligence rule. Unlike standard liability rules, however, when both parties are vigilant (i.e., taking more care than is efficient), the rule provides for liability shares that depend on the parties' degrees of vigilance. Moreover, when one party is negligent and the other is non-negligent, our rule provides for variable liability shares, that respond to both carefulness and carelessness of the parties. Our liability rule is equitable; it has no discontinuity at the efficient point where both parties are just meeting their standards of care; and it provides incentives that guarantee the injurer and victim will choose the efficient care levels. This paper does not include theorems and proofs; rather it explains the results with the aid of a simple example, laid out in an easy 3 x 3 table.

RISK, INFORMATIONAL ASYMMETRY AND PRODUCT LIABILITY: An Enquiry Into Conflicting Objectives

Pacific Economic Review, 2009

Risky products inflict two costs on society; the accident and the insurance costs. The expansion ... more Risky products inflict two costs on society; the accident and the insurance costs. The expansion in the scope of product liability since the late 1970s has increased the cost of thirdparty liability insurance. However, the economic analysis has, traditionally, focused on only the accident costs. Some recent works suggests a strict trade-off between minimization of the accident costs and the insurance costs. In this paper, we extend the analysis by considering both types of costs. An efficiency characterization of product liability rules is provided by assuming informational asymmetry about the risk. We show that it is possible to achieve efficiency with respect to the insurance costs as well as the care levels.

Comparative Causation and Comparative Vigilance

American Law and Economics Review, 2009

A growing body of literature suggests that courts and juries are inclined toward division of liab... more A growing body of literature suggests that courts and juries are inclined toward division
of liability between two strictly non-negligent or “vigilant” parties. In this paper,
we explore the economic efficiency of liability rules based on comparative vigilance.
We devise rules that are efficient and that reward vigilance. Commonly used liability
rules have discontinuous liability shares. We develop a liability rule, which we
call the “super-symmetric rule,” that is both efficient and continuous, that is based
on comparative negligence when both parties are negligent and on comparative vigilance
when both parties are vigilant, and that is always responsive to increased care.

Land Acquisition: Abuses and Inefficiency

Does choice of procurement contract matter for cost and quality of infrastructure? Comparison of cost and quality of roads

International Growth Centre, LSE, Working Paper, No S-89209-INC-2, 2018

Does choice of procurement contract matter for cost and quality of infrastructure? We model the ... more Does choice of procurement contract matter for cost and quality of infrastructure? We model the incentive structures induced by Public Private Partnerships (PPPs or P3) contracts and the traditional procurement contracts used for infrastructure. Predictions
emanating from the model are tested using a dataset of 313 national highways projects in India. The empirical analysis examines validity of a widely held belief that PPPs are better than the traditional contracts in terms of the cost and quality of infrastructure. We show that the construction costs are significantly higher for PPPs than the traditionally
procured (non-PPP) highways. For a subset of projects, we compare the quality of PPPs with the non-PPP roads. Our analysis shows that the PPPs encourage life-cycle approach towards project costs. Moreover, the quality of PPP roads is better than the traditional highways

Public Private Partnerships Vs. Traditional Roads: Project Delivery Time, Costs and Quality

The Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) have become a mainstay of plans of the Centre and the Stat... more The Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) have become a mainstay of plans of the Centre and the State governments towards infrastructure development. We empirically examine a widely held belief that PPPs are better than the traditional approach towards infrastructure in that they can deliver superior quality infrastructure at a faster rate and lower costs. Using a dataset of more than three hundred national highways projects, we compare the performance of the PPP and the traditional government (non-PPP) highway projects. We show that the project delays are relatively short for PPPs, but the cost overruns are significantly higher for PPPs than for the government managed highway projects. The data and other available evidence suggest that the quality of PPP roads is better than the traditional highways. However, the overall quality of road services under PPPs is deficient on several counts.