The turmoil that has characterised the global financial markets since the 1990s, and particularly the crisis in East Asia, has generated a great deal of support for proposals to add some frictions to the wheels of international finance, as part of overall reforms to the global financial...

This report is intended as a wake-up call to anyone who thinks the developing world debt crisis has been resolved. In fact, it assesses fears of a new debt crisis, more serious than before, spreading to nearly 40 countries. 38 of the 43 countries that the World Bank calculates are most...

In late March the release of data on sale of new homes in the US showed that it had dropped 10 per cent, the biggest drop in nine years. In the immediate aftermath of this report, the US currency gave up some ground against the Euro and other major currencies. Bond yields dropped and rate hike...

Most standard indicators suggest that India’s reserve stock is more than adequate. The rapid stockpiling of foreign exchange reserves implies that the RBI has been leaning-against-the-wind to keep down the value of the Indian Rupee. As India has become more export-oriented it has become...

The paper examines the current problems with the IMF which include: 1) the institution is no longer fulfilling the functions it used to fulfil, nor is there a clear vision of any new functions for it; 2) due to a drastic pruning of its loan operations, it is not receiving enough revenue to cover...

This paper outlines a proposal for a controlled approach to capital account liberalization for economies experiencing large capital inflows. The proposal essentially involves securitizing a portion of capital inflows through closed-end mutual funds that issue shares in domestic currency, use the...

Statement by Dr. Raghuram Rajan on taking office on September 4, 2013. [RBI Press release].

This study analyses the behaviour of monetary and fiscal policies interaction in India using quarterly data for 2000Q2 to 2010Q1. It finds that, even after the elimination of automatic monetisation of fiscal deficit in 1997 and prohibiting RBI from buying government securities in the primary...

China’s expected growth slowdown - from 10.3 per cent yoy in 2010 to 8.9 per cent this year and 8.3 per cent in 2012 - will impact the global economy. An in-depth look at how important China really is for the rest of the world. Also, potential speed bumpers ahead that might lead to...

Why do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of non-systematic income risk? Why don’t financial markets develop to pool these risks? This paper uses a series of randomized field experiments to test the importance of price and non-price factors in the adoption of an...