The article examines the restructuring of expenditure in the first budget of the new government, and its feasibility. It compares the increase in budget allocations for key macroeconomic aggregates and sectoral plan outlays for the BJP and UPAII interim budget, and the change from the interim...

The paper analyzes causes of movements in Indian wages for rural unskilled male laborers, and assesses their impact on inflation. Theoretical priors derived from an analytical framework based on the concepts of fair wages, salience and over-reaction are tested using a State level rural wage data...

If banks solve an inter-temporal problem under adverse selection and moral hazard, then bank specific factors, regulatory and supervisory features, market structure, and macroeconomic factors affect banks loan interest rates and their spread over deposit interest rates. To examine post...

Options for monetary policy arising from interactions between it and Indian foreign exchange (FX) markets. A brief survey covers recent rapid changes providing a snapshot of current microstructure, and of monetary policy institutions. The survey brings out the growing links between money and FX...

Stylized facts for South Asia show the dominance of supply shocks, amplified by macroeconomic policies and procyclical current accounts. Interest and exchange rate volatility rose initially on liberalization, but fell as markets deepened. A gradual middling through approach to openness and...

The record of different post reform governments in meeting their targets and improving both delivery and finances is assessed. A variety of indices are constructed, and consistency checks devised to measure relative performance.

Stricter regulatory surveillance in emerging market economies (EMEs) largely insulated their financial systems from the crisis. Development and convergence of regulatory apparatus has been rapid. In some respects, EMEs may be closer to new global norms. The development of financial markets,...

In the context of the formation of G-20, the paper points out the absence of reform in the global financial architecture (GFA) after the East Asian crisis, and assesses factors that can improve the chances of real reform this time. A factual assessment of various causes advanced for the global...

In order to examine if the impact of oil price shocks depends on the structure of an economy, a vertical (VSC) and a horizontal (HSC) long-run supply curve identification are successively imposed on a three variable VAR with Indian time series data. While core inflation is measured with the VSC,...

The paper examines the impact of recent inflation and financial shocks on the vulnerable, and explores policy design to reduce both future shocks and vulnerability to shocks. Inflation affects the typical savings cum pension portfolio and the specific consumption basket of the old, as prices of...