No abstract

Health has a major contribution in attaining better human capital and wellbeing both at the individual as well as at country levels. Although military spending may boost economic growth through multiplier and spillover effects, yet tradeoffs exist between military expenditures and health outcomes. Grossman (1972) explains health as output which depends on many input variables. By covering a panel of 156 countries ranging from the time period 1970 to 2014, this study incorporates military expenditures, GDP per capita, urbanization, access to the improved drinking water source, number of physicians, and secondary school enrollment as determinants of health (life expectancy and infant mortality). OLS, fixed effects, random effects, and system GMM have been used as estimation techniques. The study reveals that countries with low military expenditures have a comparatively high life expectancy and low infant mortality as compared to countries with high military expenditures. Robustness of results was checked through sensitivity analyses performed on the bases of determinants of health, international geopolitical scenario, and the development status of the country. The evidence of sensitivity analysis suggests that overall results are robust in life expectancy model but somehow sensitive in case of infant mortality. The study affirms the explicit tradeoff between military expenditures and welfare spending and concludes that hefty defense expenditures lower life expectancy and enhance infant mortality.

Bergenia ligulata Wall., family Saxifragaceae, is an Indian folk medicine used for a variety of pharmacological effects. In this study, evidence is provided in animal model to demonstrate the role of aqueous as well as 50% ethanolic extract of B. ligulata in inflammation and as antibacterial agent. Oral administration of the extract at a dose level of 1 gm/kg bw showed anti-inflammatory and free radical scavenging activity as evaluated using pharmacological and biochemical parameters. The effect was studied on biochemical parameters reportedly perturbed in inflammation. While the extract treatment could alleviate the level of succinate dehydrogenase and xanthine oxidase, which increase in inflammation, the level of superoxide dismutase increased following the treatment with the extract as well as the diclofenac. Role of oxygen free radicals/peroxides was evaluated by measuring lipid peroxidation and glutathione. Treatment with the extract could significantly decrease the enhanced level of lipid peroxidation in inflammation, and increased the level of glutathione. Further, the antibacterial activity of various fractions was tested in vitro using cultures of Escherichia coli, Baccillus subtilis, and S. aureus, and the fractions were found to be antibacterial. The antifungal activity was also tested using the culture of Saccharomyces. However, the drug was ineffective in inhibiting fungal growth. Results provide evidence suggesting the anti-inflammatory as well as the antibacterial role of B. ligulata, thus implicating the plant extract in treatment against the bacterial infection and inflammation.

This study is an attempt to construct a women empowerment index using multi-dimensional factors in the context of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of women's living conditions at household level. The secondary objective of the study is also to measure the contribution of each factor towards the level of women empowerment. We have employed data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) of 38 developing economies on evermarried women in the age of 15-49. Five broad dimensions of women empowerment are created using 19 indicators from DHS that are related to the women empowerment. These five dimensions are; (i) women's work status, (ii) awareness, (iii) participation in decision making, (iv) self-esteem and, (v) self-confidence and multiple regression analysis are used for the estimation of empirical mode. The study finds that women's characteristics, primarily higher education and women's health, husband higher education, husband employment status and household wealth are positively associated with work status, awareness, decision making, selfesteem and self-confidence. Age difference younger than husband have positive association with works status, awareness, self-confidence while have negative association with selfesteem. Further, the number of children alive above five years and the number of children ever born also have significant impact on the women's empowerment. Similarly, age of head of household, gender of head of household, household size, and locality showed significant affect on the women empowerment in the sampled developing economies.

The study examined the interdependence of sectorial growth, exchange rate and fiscal policy by simultaneous equation model for 50 developing economies over the time period of 2000 to 2014. Industrial GDP, service sector GDP, exchange rate, tax revenue are endogenous variables, while capital formation, foreign direct investment, trade, inflation, foreign aid, external debt and money supply are instruments. The study has 4 system of equations and estimated by simultaneous equations models (SEMs) through three-stage least squares (3SLS) estimator presented by (Zellner & Theil, 1962), the result of the study indicates that sectorial growth and fiscal policy have positive relation because tax exemption or reduction generate great impact on sectoral growth. Sectorial growth and exchange rate have a positive relation. The study also indicates that the exchange rate and fiscal policy are negatively related. An increase in government expenditure (spending) shows a decrease in the exchange rate. So the government of developing economies should increase revenues from non-tax sources instead of taxes, an increase in taxes decrease the exchange rate and ultimately increased in the sectoral growth.