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This study analyses asymmetry in price transmission between wholesale and retail rice markets in Sri Lanka, using the threshold autoregressive model. We found that the wholesale and the retail rice markets in Sri Lanka are integrated, with price changes moving from the wholesale to the retail market. However, the price transmission process is asymmetric. In particular, price increases at the wholesale market transmit immediately to the retail market while price decreases transmit more slowly. Parameter stability test and follow-up analysis indicated that the price transmission process is asymmetric only during periods of price surges, suggesting that the rice market is not efficient during these periods.

In many developing countries, in addition to household income, there are a number of other socio-economic determinants of poverty. One such hidden socio-economic factor is alcohol consumption and some studies argue that there is a link between alcohol consumption and poverty. The main aim of this study is to measure the effects of alcohol consumption on the level of poverty in a systematic way. Using Sri Lanka as a case study, this article demonstrates that the consumption of various types of alcoholic beverages, particularly, the illegal beverages, has a significant positive association with the level of poverty. The findings of this study suggest that, in Sri Lanka, the consumption of illegal alcoholic beverages increases the likelihood of being in a poor household by 2–3%. The results of this study also find that households who are characterized as nonpoor but are just above the poverty line behave more like the poor rather than the nonpoor in terms of alcohol consumption. Some of the conclusio...

Sri Lanka had the opportunity to become one of the best tourism countries (TCs) in Asia immediately after independence in 1948. However, it missed opportunities on a number of occasions due to inappropriate economic policies, continuous political violence and war. Between 1983 and May 2009 the Sri Lankan tourism sector was seriously affected by nearly three decades of separatist war. Immediately after the end of the war, tourism in Sri Lanka bounced back and it has now become one of the main engines of economic growth in post-war Sri Lanka. In this article, a historical analysis has been undertaken to demonstrate how, despite its large tourism potential, Sri Lanka missed opportunities and fell far behind its Asian counterparts on a number of occasions. This article demonstrates that opportunities exist for the Sri Lankan tourism sector to play a vital role in the current post-war inclusive development strategy in terms of generating much needed foreign exchange, poverty alleviation via employment generati...

While the existing literature on rising food prices in recent years has mainly focused on the causes and calculating the number of people falling below the poverty line in developing countries, less attention has been paid to rising food prices and food security in terms of calorie intake. The main objective of this study is to fill this gap using a case study of a developing country, Sri Lanka. In this study, we estimate the change in individual calorie intake associated with food inflation using the Stone–Geary utility function. The impact at national level is assessed using a calorie intake distribution curve. The results demonstrate that the percentage of undernourished population in Sri Lanka is expected to rise rapidly with food inflation on the basis that there is no income increase during the period under consideration. However, the rise in undernourished population is remarkably low when the income effect is taken into consideration.

Until the 1970s, Sri Lanka was often seen as a model for a third world democratic welfare state. However, its image as a model of development and democracy has been rapidly and severely tarnished over the 1980s and the 1990s. Recently, a number of studies have attempted to explain the reasons for Sri Lanka's fall from grace. According to these studies, Sri Lanka's recent history of underachievement and economic crisis can be attributed to the country's 25-year-old war, policy mistakes, an inefficient large public sector, and poor governance. In this study, I propose to argue that the erosion of ‘productive’ social capital has also played an important role in the sorry tale of development in Sri Lanka. To this end I investigate how its accumulated stocks of productive social capital have been eroded.

(1997). The impact of the civil war on tourism and the regional economy. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies: Vol. 20, Conflict and Community in Contemporary Sri Lanka, pp. 269-279.