This paper examines policies, mechanisms and institutions related to the formal and informal seed sector in India and Bangladesh. Informal seed trade is defined as the sum of farmers’ seed production and exchange. Seeds produced and traded by farmers at the informal level is still a major part of the seed sector in India and Bangladesh. Although governments in both the countries have tried to replace it with formal seed production and trade, the legislative framework, institutional weakness and constraints in mechanism impose limits to these efforts. In this context, a re-evaluation of the existing scenario is needed to improve seed production and supply in both countries.

Dr Saurabh Kumar| is the Subir Chowdhury Fellow (2014-15) from CUTS International, India.

Social Insurance for Rural Migrants in China under the ‘New Deal’: Practices and trajectories in three regions

Speaker: Zehao Cai

Since 2013, several significant conferences in China have focused on Neo urbanisation. The ‘new deal’ emphasises the citizenization of rural migrants. Nevertheless, how inclusively public services have been offered to rural migrants has yet to be determined. For this study three Provincial regions of China have been selected: one in the west (Chongqing), one in the central region (Hunan) and one in the east (Jiangsu). Taking social insurance as the targeted policy, this research tries to clarify the extent to which social insurance policies would include and support rural migrants. Specifically, three dimensions concerning the policy are closely examined: the qualification to be covered in the social insurance, the actual procedures of the transition either among regions or among different insurance systems, and the potential loss during the aforementioned transition.

Mr Zehao Cai is a Pre-doctoral Visiting Fellow from Renmin University.

Did the 2008 Stimulus Package Help Firms? From the perspective of debt support

Speaker: Yangyang Liu

In 2008, the Chinese government put forth an economic stimulus package of 586 billion USD to minimise the impact of the global financial crisis. This is considered one of the most important macroeconomic policy interventions of the past decade. This paper employs this policy intervention as a case study to address the challenge of evaluating the treatment effects with a micro-prospective. The results indicate that the treated firms failed to present a significantly superior performance compared with the control group, the influence even became significantly negative after 2012. Output expansion and misallocation of the liquidity source supplied by the stimulus policy contributed to the adverse effects.

Mr Yangyang Liu is a Pre-doctoral Visiting Fellow from Tsinghua University.

Chair: Athar Hussain

Professor Athar Hussain| is Director of the LSE Asia Research Centre.

Additional Information

This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. Please direct any queries to arc@lse.ac.uk| or call 020 7955 7615.