Archives: Event

Dr Poonam Gupta has been appointed to the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM)

Dr Poonam Gupta, Director General of NCAER, has been inducted into the seven-member Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. As per a notification from the Cabinet Secretariat, the Prime Minister approved the reconstitution of the Economic Advisory Council to the PM (EAC-PM) for a period of two years on September 27, 2021. The Council will be headed by noted economist and erstwhile Member of NITI Aayog, Mr Bibek Debroy.

The role of the EAC-PM is to analyse any issue, economic or otherwise, referred to it by the PM and advise him on those issues, besides addressing subjects of macroeconomic importance and presenting views to the PM, either suo moto or on reference from the PM or anyone else.

The faculty and staff of NCAER offer their heartiest congratulations and best wishes to Dr Gupta on her appointment.

Know Your Regulator Series | ‘Know your Regulator’: Ms Rita Teaotia, Chairperson of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)

The IEPF Unit, NCAER in collaboration with The State Capacity Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), the Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR), and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) organised this talk in the  Know Your Regulator Series. The talk featured Ms Rita Teaotia, Chairperson of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in conversation with Dr Mekhala Krishnamurty, Senior Fellow, CPR and Director of the State Capacity Initiative and Dr. Abha Yadav, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs and Director of the Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR) Centre at IICA. Dr KP Krishnan, IEPF Chair Professor in Regulatory Economics, NCAER delivered the introductory remarks.

About the Talk

Food is regulated through a variety of activities that include setting food safety standards, developing guidelines, mandating disclosure, devising certification standards, testing of products, monitoring and supervision, and the imposition of sanctions and penalties. It also includes public education about food safety amongst the general public and to people and enterprises in the business of producing and selling food. The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 provides the legal framework for food regulation in India. Following this law, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) was established in 2008.Our Know Your Regulator (KYR) Briefing Note: FSSAI provides introductory information about the design and structure of food regulation in India.

About the ‘Know Your Regulator’ Series

This talk series is jointly organised by the State Capacity Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), the Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR) and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA). In this series, we will talk to the people entrusted with the task of regulating Indian markets and various parts and aspects of the economy. These are the chairpersons and members of India’s regulatory agencies. In our conversations, we will seek to explore the public nature of regulatory activity. In other words, why should the work of regulatory agencies be of interest to people, as producers, consumers, professionals, service providers, and as citizens? What are the public goals of regulation? In what ways does the work of regulation involve having to make a balance, or to make trade-offs, or to amicably resolve competing or even conflicting claims of public and private interest?

Regulatory agencies are a relatively recent innovation of the Indian state, set up to address the evolving needs of the Indian economy in the decades since the 1990s (although with some notable older instances). We are interested in exploring the institutional form of the regulatory agencies, their features, norms and values, and their frameworks of decision-making and rationality. We are also interested in the functional domain and the everyday administration of the regulatory agencies, their staffing, procedures, information systems and operational modalities. Regulatory agencies are envisaged as a state agency that can respond to complex and changing situations, both at the level of policy recommendation and in case-specific ruling. In the conception of regulatory agencies, this was thought of as a challenge that would be addressed through specialisation, expertise and in the design of their power and functions. However, each regulatory agency is also unique, in terms of the way in which its regulatory mandate is designed and the nature of the challenges that it is set up to address. In this talk series, we will seek to explore the regulatory debates (both broad and sectoral) that animate the world of regulation, and how it relates to the rest of us.

‘Conversations with NCAER’ | Digital Currencies: What does the future hold? (First webinar)

The first in a new monthly webinar series , ‘Conversations with NCAER’ instituted by NCAER was organised on October 18, 2021. This webinar series revolve around discussions with experts on topical issues in the macroeconomic arena. For the first conversation on Digital Currencies: What does the future hold, NCAER invited Professor Eswar Prasad, Tolani Senior Professor of International Trade Policy at Cornell University and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he holds the New Century Chair in Economics, Dr D Subbarao, former Governor, Reserve Bank of India and Mr AP Hota, former MD and CEO, National Payments Corporation of India, the umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India, and the main driving force behind digitisation in India as panelists. The discussion was moderated by Ms Mythili Bhusnurmath, Senior Advisor, NCAER.

Digital currencies, that is, cryptos, stable coins and central bank digital currencies are grabbing eyeballs and headlines all over the world. As of September 2021, the total market value of all the crypto assets had surpassed $2 trillion, signifying a ten-fold increase since early 2020. The rise of virtual currencies has been accompanied by the emergence of an entire ecosystem – exchanges, wallets, miners, and issuers – posing a challenge to countries across the world.  As crypto assets become more mainstream, their importance in terms of potential implications for the wider economy is bound to increase. What are the risks, the opportunities, the merits and demerits of virtual currencies and the path-breaking block chain technology underlying these currencies? The rich discussions in this webinar and the Q&A that followed strived to de-mystify all this and more.

What are the risks, the opportunities, the merits and demerits of virtual currencies and the path-breaking block chain technology underlying these currencies? This webinar on Digital Currencies: What does the future hold? seeks to de-mystify all this and more.

Eswar Prasad is the Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he holds the New Century Chair in International Economics, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was previously chief of the Financial Studies Division in the IMF’s Research Department and, before that, was the head of the IMF’s China Division.

Prasad’s latest book is The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance (Harvard University Press, 2021). He is also the author of Gaining Currency: The Rise of the Renminbi (Oxford, 2016) and The Dollar Trap: How the U.S. Dollar Tightened Its Grip on Global Finance (Princeton, 2014). Prasad has testified before the Senate Finance Committee, the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is the creator of the Brookings-Financial Times world economy index (TIGER: Tracking Indices for the Global Economic Recovery). His op-ed articles have appeared in the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Harvard Business Review, International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

Duvvuri Subbarao was the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India for five years (2008-13). Prior to that, Subbarao served as the Finance Secretary to the Government of India, and as Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council 2005-07. He was also a Lead Economist in the World Bank 1999-2004. As a career civil servant for over 35 years, he worked in various positions in the state government of Andhra Pradesh and in the central government in New Delhi mostly in the area of public finance management. He has most recently been a Distinguished International Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, and has served as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the National University of Singapore.
He has written and spoken extensively on issues in macroeconomic management, public finance and financial sector reforms. During his tenure at the Reserve Bank, he was also recognised as a leading exponent of central banking issues from an emerging market perspective. He holds a Masters in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and an MS in Economics from Ohio State University, and studied Public Finance from MIT as a Humphrey Fellow. He earned his PhD in Economics from Andhra University in India.

A P Hota, former Managing Director and CEO of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) was also the Head of Department of Payment and Settlement Systems (DPSS) at Reserve Bank of India (RBI). He combines the experience of a central banker with that of a service provider in digital payments.
During his tenure at NPCI as founder MD and CEO during the period February 2009 to August 2017, a host of game changing electronic payment products like Immediate Payment System (IMPS), RuPay Card- India’s domestic card network, Aadhar Payments Bridge (APB), Aadhar Enabled Payment System (AEPS), Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) System, Bharat Bill Pay System (BBPS) and the most talked about payment platform named Unified Payments Interface (UPI) were introduced.  All these products have transformed India’s payments landscape   during the past 5-7 years. Post retirement from RBI and NPCI, Shri Hota now serves as an Independent Director on the Boards of a few institutions and advises in the area of national strategy in payments.

Mythili  Bhusnurmath is Senior Advisor, NCAER and Consulting Editor, ET Now TV. She holds a Master’s in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and is Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers. She also holds a law degree from Delhi University.

She worked with the State Bank of India and Reserve Bank of India before moving to journalism in 1993. She was Opinion Page Editor, The Economic Times and Editor, The Financial Express.

Data Talks: The NCAER Data Innovation Centre Methodology Seminars (Fourth Seminar)

Employment Decline and Recovery during the Pandemic

The NCAER National Data Innovation Centre (NDIC) held a seminar on “Employment Decline and Recovery during the Pandemic”, on October 7, 2021.  This webinar was the fourth in a series of thought-provoking discussions on research methodologies organised by NDIC, in which distinguished speakers in the field share their views. The participants in the discussion included Sonalde Desai, NCAER and the University of Maryland; Ankur Sarin, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; Rahul Lahoti, ETH, Zurich and Azim Premji University; and Kaushik Krishnan, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. Santanu Pramanik, Senior Fellow and the Deputy Director of the National Data Innovation Centre at NCAER, moderated the session.

Over the last 18 months, the pandemic has taken its toll on the lives and livelihoods of individuals around the globe. Unfortunately, the social distancing requirements have also made it difficult for us to measure the impact of this catastrophe. The speakers in this webinar represented research projects with diverse goals and methodologies; a conversation among them is designed to understand the employment impact of the pandemic and recovery using different methods of data collection. This enriching discussion offered a unique opportunity for exploring the short- and long-term economic effects on different segments of the Indian population from a holistic perspective.

 

Sonalde Desai presented on “Employment Vulnerability during the Pandemic”.

Desai is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and Professor at NCAER, and Director of NCAER’s National Data Innovation Centre. She is a demographer whose work deals primarily with social inequalities in developing countries, focusing on gender and class inequalities in human development. She leads the India Human Development Survey and has been elected as the President of the Population Association of America for 2022.

Ankur Sarin spoke on “Vulnerabilities in Rural India: Surveys by Field-based Organisations”.

Sarin is an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. A shared theme in his research is attention to the consequences of inequalities and instruments used to counter them. These include public policies, social enterprises, and movements. In his recent work, he has tried to use field-based research to study and facilitate the fulfilment of policy obligations to citizens, especially children. He holds a Ph.D. (Public Policy) from the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, and a BA (Economics), Bates College.

Rahul Lahoti presented on “Lessons and Challenges from Measuring Employment and Incomes during the Pandemic.”

Lahoti is a researcher at ETH, Zurich, and Faculty Fellow at Center for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University. His research focuses on gender, labour markets, poverty, and inequality. He was involved in three phone surveys during the pandemic and has analysed secondary data to understand the distributional impacts of the pandemic on employment and income. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen, Germany, and a Master’s in Public Administration from Columbia University, New York.

Kaushik Krishnan presented on “Employment during the lockdowns as captured by the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS)”.

Krishnan works in the Household Survey division of CMIE. His primary responsibility is to deliver record-level data from the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey to researchers. He holds an LLM and Ph.D. in Economics from UC Berkeley.

Know Your Regulator Series | Why you should ‘Know your Regulator’?

The IEPF Unit, NCAER in collaboration with The State Capacity Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), the Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR), and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) organised this first event of the Know Your Regulator Series. The talk featured Dr M. S. Sahoo, Chairperson, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) and Honorary Chairperson, Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR) in conversation with Dr KP Krishnan, IEPF Chair Professor in Regulatory Economics, NCAER and Dr Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Senior Fellow, CPR and Director, State Capacity Initiative. The session, held virtually, is the curtain raiser to a series of sessions that will follow.

About the ‘Know Your Regulator’ Series

The State Capacity Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), the Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR) and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) are pleased to announce a new talk series titled: ‘Know Your Regulator’ In this series, we will talk to the people entrusted with the task of regulating Indian markets and various parts and aspects of the economy. These are the chairpersons and members of India’s regulatory agencies.

In our conversations, we will seek to explore the public nature of regulatory activity. In other words, why should the work of regulatory agencies be of interest to people, as producers, consumers, professionals, service providers, and as citizens? What are the public goals of regulation? In what ways does the work of regulation involve having to make a balance, or to make trade-offs, or to amicably resolve competing or even conflicting claims of public and private interest?

Regulatory agencies are a relatively recent innovation of the Indian state, set up to address the evolving needs of the Indian economy in the decades since the 1990s (although with some notable older instances). We are interested in exploring the institutional form of the regulatory agencies, their features, norms and values, and their frameworks of decision-making and rationality. We are also interested in the functional domain and the everyday administration of the regulatory agencies, their staffing, procedures, information systems and operational modalities.

Regulatory agencies are envisaged as a state agency that can respond to complex and changing situations, both at the level of policy recommendation and in case-specific ruling. In the conception of regulatory agencies, this was thought of as a challenge that would be addressed through specialisation, expertise and in the design of their power and functions. However, each regulatory agency is also unique, in terms of the way in which its regulatory mandate is designed and the nature of the challenges that it is set up to address. In this talk series, we will seek to explore the regulatory debates (both broad and sectoral) that animate the world of regulation, and how it relates to the rest of us.

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