Department Of Economics

Jaffna, Sri Lanka is experiencing major shifts in her socio-cultural structure during the last ten years, especially post war. With increased penetration of electronic media, affordable home entertainment systems, cinema, and the internet, consumers are opening up to the great outside world. The developed worlds are constantly creating reality for the consumers. This is not different in case of Jaffna. After having finished civil war, people in Jaffna are more enthusiastic to imitate others because of seeking social status and they Strive to show the impression that they are better off than before. The main objectives of the present study were to find out the significant determinants for conspicuous consumption and size of that between male and female and to what extend poor tend to display their conspicuous consumption in a society. The results bring to light the fact that income is main determinant of the amount to be allocated but sex and age have insignificant impact on the amou...

The growth and development of SMEs in Jaffna is vulnerable due to the three decades of internal war. Even having finished the war, there is no remarkable progress in the development of SMEs in Jaffna. Thus, main objective of study is to scrutinize the severity and degree of issues of small and medium enterprises in post conflict Jaffna. The second objective is to identify the growth status of SMEs in Jaffna. Self administered Likert scale questionnaire has been employed for the analysis of study. The results bring to light the fact that mean value of assets , value of turnover and mean value of number of employees as well as growth stages of SMEs clearly show that there is very poor growth of small enterprises in Jaffna. Another finding is that the mean values of all issues of SMEs are closer to one or two indicating that small enterprises of Jaffna have been undergoing several severe problems in the growth of business in post war. Government should give more priority in policy maki...

The boosting stable Economic growth and poverty reduction are an important goal of the successive Sri Lankan government. So as to achieve this goal tremendous money has been so far spent since independence. But expected result is very far from goal. Thus, Policy makers have articulated the development of SMEs as strategic remedies to solve this problem. The objective of this study is to find out and analyze the trend and contribution of Small medium enterprises in Sri Lanka and second objective is to examine the growth and status of SMEs. For the findings to be found out Primary and secondary data was employed for this study. Small and medium enterprises accounts for 98% of total establishments in 1983 and 93% in 2008. But, 98% of small and medium enterprises in 1983 only account for 48.6% of total employment and 31.1% of value added while 93%of small and medium enterprises account for 29.6% total employment and 20.3% of value added in 2008.It is the fact that even though there are ...

Purpose of the article: SMEs play important role in both developed and newly industrialized countries in terms of boosting economic growth and alleviating poverty. Despite there are vast numbers of SMEs in Sri Lanka, people do not enjoy stable economic growth and good living standard so far. Therefore, the prime intension of this study is to find out the association between economic growth and SMEs in Sri Lanka and also nexus among the economic growth, poverty and SMEs. Methodology/methods: This study analyzes the impact of small and medium enterprises in the economic growth and poverty in addition to role of SMEs in consonance with employment generation and value added in Sri Lanka. The secondary data have been employed for the analysis. The simple multiple regression model was employed to analyze the data. Heteroskedasticity and serial correlation problems were detected with the help of statistical soft ware (E-views). Scientific aim: The aim of study is to scrutinize the associat...

Generally the developing countries have relied on devaluation of exchange rate as a tool in enhancing the trade balance and balance of payment. This is not different in the case of Sri Lanka. The study is based on two country model involving trade between Sri Lanka and the U.S.A. This study is based on secondary time series data from 1977 to 2010. The model I have recourse to is a model adopted by many researchers where the trade balance and real exchange rate are directly linked. The analysis is done by the use of statistical package Eviews includes the econometric procedures of Unit root test, Engle Granger and Johansen technique for cointegration and also IRF analysis to test J curve effect along with multiple regression analysis. The aim of the study is to scrutinize the relationship among trade balance, real exchange rate and real income and to find out whether there is existence of J curve in the bilateral trade between Sri Lanka and United State. Several literatures in regard...

The growth and development of SMEs in Jaffna is vulnerable due to the three decades of internal war. Even having finished the war, there is no remarkable progress in the development of SMEs in Jaffna. Thus, main objective of study is to scrutinize the severity and degree of issues of small and medium enterprises in post conflict Jaffna. The second objective is to identify the growth status of SMEs in Jaffna. Self administered Likert scale questionnaire has been employed for the analysis of study. The results bring to light the fact that mean value of assets , value of turnover and mean value of number of employees as well as growth stages of SMEs clearly show that there is very poor growth of small enterprises in Jaffna. Another finding is that the mean values of all issues of SMEs are closer to one or two indicating that small enterprises of Jaffna have been undergoing several severe problems in the growth of business in post war. Government should give more priority in policy maki...

Jaffna, Sri Lanka is experiencing major shifts in her socio-cultural structure during the last ten years. Especially after post war, consumer behavior and patterns has rapidly changed in Jaffna. Thus, a society which has been traditionally known as "collective" in nature is showing increased evidence of individualism. With increased penetration of electronic media, affordable home entertainment systems, cinema, and the internet, consumers are opening up to the great outside world. The developed worlds are constantly creating reality for the consumers. This is not different in case of Jaffna. Having finished civil war, people in Jaffna are more enthusiastic to imitate others because of seeking social status and they Strive to show the impression that they are better off than before. Not only that they increase his chance of making relationship with high ability and middle and upper class people. The main objectives of the present study were to find out the significant determinants for conspicuous consumption and size of that between male and female and to what extend poor tend to display their conspicuous consumption in a society. For this study, OLS method and descriptive statistics have been used with the help of statistical software for social science (SPSS). The results bring the light the fact that income is main determinant of the amount to be allocated but sex and age have insignificant impact on the amount to be allocated for social status. Further, this finding clearly shows the fact that people in Jaffna are making significant allocation of their income to maintain social status than satisfaction and at the same time, poor people in Jaffna are also enthusiastic to have conspicuous consumption for expressing their position that they are better off than before. This study will be giving different insight to researchers and policy makers because the literature for conspicuous consumption pays little attention on poor and low middle income people yet, especially in Sri Lanka. Further, this study will help to marketing managers or firms in their decision about sales.

Poverty measurement and analysis are needed to identify the poor, the nature and extent of poverty and its determinants, and to assess the impact of policies and programmes on the poor. The government of Sri Lanka has been spending huge sums of money for poverty alleviation and social welfare since its independence. Yet, poverty is still severe and widespread in Sri Lanka, especially in the estate and rural areas .The objective of this study is to find out and analyze the significant determinants of the incidence of poverty in the estate sector where the highest level of chronic poverty and unemployment exist. The national and regional poverty survey data and other official socio economic cross sectional data from selected provinces were used to analyze the extent of poverty in plantation sector in which 89 Divisional Secretariat from provinces such as Subaragamuva, Central and Uva were considered for the analysis. The econometric model were fitted and estimated in this study. Furthermore, Log transformation was conducted and heteroskedasticity problem was detected with the use of statistical software. The Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression analysis clearly indicates that, variables such as industrial employment, education, access to market and infrastructure significantly and negatively affect the poverty incidence of the estate sector. Also, agricultural employment has a negative impact but not significant. The R2 of 0.82 explains the statistical fitness of the model and the Prob (F-statistics) also confirms it. Analysis with the Durbin-Watson stat confirms that, there is no auto correlation between the variables. The results emphasize the need for adapting policies for regional infrastructural improvement as well as market and educational development in the plantation sector.