This paper examines the impact of students' network size, distance, prestige and connections to influential individuals on academic performance. Larger and closer networks facilitate information exchange, but may also increase distractions that decrease productivity. To resolve this ambiguity,...

This paper investigates the impact of official language policies on education using state formation in India. Colonial provinces consisted of some districts where the official language matched the district's language and some where it did not. Linguistically mismatched districts have 18.0% lower...

Relationship-based contract enforcement is commonly thought to limit market expansion. In contrast, this paper illustrates how relationship-based contract governance accommodates new entrants into market exchange using a case study of the cycle-rickshaw rental market in a city in central India....

Levy of Service Tax under the positive list regime was fraught with constitutional and legal challenges; chief amongst those being the contours and width of the taxable service in question. An appraisal of the disputes surrounding the construction of IPR service positions it as a quintessential...

In the ever-growing tide of international tax literature, the issue which figures the most is prohibiting/relieving double taxation. It is only ironical that this issue which finds itself as the center-stage of international tax arena is not just neglected but instead more-often-than-not...

Comparatively a recent entrant in the fiscal space, 'Service Tax' in India has garnered legislative and judicial attention more than its fair share. Given its contribution to the public exchequer and fueled by the consistent increase in collection, the legal and constitutional challenges to the...

Reacting to the judicial ruling opining against its stand, the Government of India proposed to amend the provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (“Act”) to bring to tax the amount of royalty/license fee etc. earned by the States from their undertakings. This proposal, which was accepted by...

In a recent decision the European Court of Justice (‘ECJ') had a chance to examine characterization of a hire-purchase transaction as being one of the supply of ‘goods' or ‘services'. In this decision the ECJ has adverted to the innate nature of the hire-purchase transactions and the...

In a recent decision the European Court of Justice (‘ECJ') has ruled upon the scope and contours of Article 3(2) usually employed in Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (‘DTAA') / Double Taxation Conventions (‘DTC') to apply the domestic law meaning for interpreting expressions not...

Valuation has always been a key issue in any fiscal regime. Issues relating to valuation are often a sore point between the tax authorities and the subject taxpayer inasmuch as multiple methods and techniques of valuation exists to determine the assessable value which forms the basis for...