Zahid Hussain's blog

The supply of electricity is a necessary ingredient for economic and social development in low income countries. Electricity is considered to be one of the most important services for improving the welfare of individual citizens. In the digital age, it is difficult to visualize development without electricity. Apart from the availability of energy per se, change in the quality of energy is one of the most important drivers of productivity.

The process of economic development necessarily involves a transition from low levels of energy consumption to higher levels where the linkages between energy, non-energy inputs and economic activity change significantly as an economy meanders through different stages of development. With such progress, commercial fossil fuels and ultimately electricity becomes predominant. Further, the expansion of electricity supply is critical to minimize the consumption of biomass fuel that has been responsible for the massive deforestation, desertification and many health problems.

All of the above sounds fairly straightforward and non-controversial, right? Not really. Count on economists for coming up with Harry Truman’s proverbial “on the other hand”. In other words, there are no straight answers as is most often the case in the infernal complexities, contradictions and ambiguities of our favorite ‘dismal science’.

The power supply situation in Bangladesh remains as precarious as ever; with power outages becoming more erratic and load shedding persistently higher than the corresponding months in the previous year (see Figure). Bangladesh is currently experiencing unprecedented levels of load shedding nationally. Brought about by a shortage of generation supply capacity, load shedding is a last resort measure to prevent a collapse of the national electricity supply system. The risk of load shedding will remain high until at least 2013 if further actions are not taken to ameliorate the situation. Specific and immediate interventions were needed to minimize the risk of load shedding until the new peaking plant and base load electricity generating capacity being built comes online.

The government has taken initiatives to increase the generation capacity to 7,000 MW by 2013 through various technologies (fossil fuel and renewable) with both private and public sector participation. A large portion of this plan relies on quick rental power based on imported liquid fuels which are expensive, more than three times the cost per unit of electricity at which power is currently produced by large power plants.

The deep power crisis that Bangladesh is currently living through is affecting more people than the 40 percent population who currently have access to electricity. The reasons are simple.

For industries power outages increase production costs and the operating uncertainty that enterprises face. Losses arise from spoilage of goods-in-process and damage to machinery. Often the cuts in power supply cause production losses lasting beyond the duration of the outage. E-commerce and ICT cannot operate without reliable supplies of electricity. Mechanization of businesses is rendered ineffective, affecting productivity. SMEs rely on electricity for a variety of needs—lighting, refrigeration, grain mills, water pumping, food preservation and you name it. More generally, economic growth that creates jobs and enhances incomes requires electricity. Less and unreliable electricity translates into less and unreliable jobs. This is now a well established fact.

The million dollar question is what do we do to energize the economy?

The Wage Board on garments in Bangladesh nearly doubled minimum wages on July 29, 2010. The minimum wage at the entry level will be raised to Tk 3,000 a month (or about $43) from Tk 1,662.50 ($24). The new pay structure, proposed to be effective from November 1, maintains the existing seven grades with the highest pay fixed at Tk 9,300 ($140) per month. About 3.5 million Bangladeshis work in the garment industry, which accounts for 80 percent of the country’s exports. International companies like Wal-Mart, JC Penney, H&M, Zara, Tesco, Carrefour, Gap, Metro, Marks & Spencer, Kohl's, Levi Strauss and Tommy Hilfiger all import in bulk from Bangladesh.

Garment workers apparently are unhappy over their wages, even after the proposed increase. They protested by smashing vehicles and blocking traffic in various garment sites in Dhaka following the announcement of the wage increase. Why has the frequency of violence increased?

The garment industry in Bangladesh has been subject to several tests of resilience in recent years—global recession, energy shortage, input price increases, and labor unrest. Of late, the labor unrest has escalated apparently triggered by disagreement over re-fixation of minimum wage. The workers, for quite some time now, have been pressing for adjustment in minimum wage that was last increased in 2006, after 12 years, from Tk. 930* (about $60 in PPP) per month to Tk. 1,662 (about $108 in PPP) per month. The government in April 2010 committed that a new pay-scale for the RMG workers will be announced before Ramadan, and formed a Wage Board for making the wage recommendations. For reasons not yet fully understood, the labor unrest was reignited recently without waiting to hear what the Wage Board’s recommendations are. However, it is abundantly clear that dissatisfaction with the nominal level of the minimum wage is at the center of the discord between garment owners and workers.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) presented their Final Report on The Bangladesh Household Remittance Survey 2009 in a workshop held in Dhaka on May 12, 2010.  This survey collected data from a nationally representative sample of 10,926 migrant households.  The findings of the survey confirm most of what we know about migration and remittance based on smaller surveys and anecdotal evidence.  In particular, the findings are in line with the ones from the World Bank Survey (2007), which was smaller in scope. 

I summarize below what appears to me as some emerging stylized facts about the profile of Bangladeshi migrants and their remittance behavior.

Migrants tend to be young (32 years old on average) married males who have at least completed primary education (over 75 percent). They go to the Middle-East (nearly 73 percent) and Asia (22) with the help of relatives (55 percent) and intermediaries (45 percent) after obtaining a low skilled or semi skilled job contract (79 percent) for which they had to wait for about 6 months.

More congestion follows more roads. Photo Copyright of The Daily Star

Basic transport economics teaches us that changes in roadway supply have an effect on the change in traffic congestion. Additional roadways reduce the amount of time it takes travelers to make trips during congested periods. As urban areas come closer to matching capacity growth and travel growth, the travel time increase is smaller. In theory, if additional roads are the only solution used to address mobility concerns, growth in facilities has to be slightly greater than travel growth in order to maintain constant travel times.

Adding roadway at about the same rate as traffic growth will only slow the growth of congestion. But all these assume “other things equal”. No, I am not referring to “induced demand” that could potentially make the cure (road) worse than the disease (congestion). I am referring to the competence, or lack thereof, of those who design, build, and operate the facilities in the public sector.

Photo Copyright of Jugantor

Have you ever tried explaining to non-economists what the consequences of resource misallocation can be for the economy?

What will happen if you invest enough in some sectors and too little in others? The answer is likely to be that you have enough production in sectors where you got your investments right and too little in the under-invested sectors. That may be correct in some cases, but it ignores the interdependence between the adequately invested and underinvested sectors. As a result, you may have too little production in the sectors where you have invested enough because you have too little production in the sectors you have neglected to invest.

The Netherlands’ discovery of large natural gas deposits in the North Sea in the 1960s had serious repercussions on important segments of its economy, as the Dutch guilder became stronger, making Dutch non-oil exports less competitive. This has come to be known as "Dutch disease" or “resource curse.” Although generally associated with a natural resource discovery, it can arise from any large inflow of foreign currency--foreign assistance, foreign direct investment and remittances, among others. A surge in remittances can be expected to result in appreciation of the currency in the receiving country with all its attendant consequences of crowding out exports, crowding in imports, and induce movement of resources into the production of non-traded goods.

Bangladesh has experienced a remittance boom since FY01—with annual flows rising from $1.9 billion to $9.7 billion in FY09—growing at a compounded annual rate of 22.6 percent for eight years and still counting! As a result, remittance has now reached nearly 11 percent of GDP and is now the single largest source of foreign exchange earnings.

Economic growth in Bangladesh began to decline since FY06 at roughly the same time that its public investment rate started falling. The decline in growth also appears to coincide with slowdown in growth of infrastructure capital in the hard infrastructure sectors; particularly energy, transport and communication. It is therefore tempting to think that the two may be correlated.

Indeed, economic theory suggests that the availability of economic and social infrastructures makes it conducive for the private sector to invest; higher public capital increases productivity and reduces production costs; and by increasing demand public investment gives rise to profit and sales expectations which in turn induce private investments. These are known as the crowding-in effects of public investment.

Crowding in, however, cannot be taken for granted. Public investment can also crowd out private investment if it is made in activities that compete with the private sector. In addition, the growth impact of increased public investment depends on how it is financed. If it is financed through higher public debt, which implies higher future taxation levels, private investments may get crowded out.