Archives: Event

Excess Volatility in Financial Markets: Market Failure and Government Failure

Financial markets operate within a country’s legal, regulatory, and tax framework, often designed to overcome market failures. But as with almost any government, inappropriate regulation or laws may themselves create government failures.  Where does one lay the blame for excess volatility in financial markets, volatility that may impose huge costs on the rest of the economy?  In this seminar by Dr Gurubachan Singh based on his recent paper traced the causes of excess volatility and suggests that both market and government failure are usually at fault.  As suggested in his paper, Dr Singh explained  approaches based on regulation, law, taxation, and the macroeconomic policy regime that can be deployed to try to improve the functioning of financial markets. Dr Shesadri Banerjee , NCAER as the discussant for the paper presented his very interesting views on financial volatility.

Dr Gurbachan Singh is a visiting faculty member at the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi, where he teaches a course on Finance and Volatility. He has previously taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University. His research interests focus on macro-financial stability. He has authored a book Banking Crisis, Liquidity, and Credit Lines (Routledge, 2012). He has a PhD from ISI and an MA from the Delhi School of Economics.

This seminar follows a number of recent NCAER seminars on international finance and monetary policy, including Gurbachan Singh’s last seminar on “Is India Hedged Against Systemic Risk?” (June 05, 2013); Shesadri Banerjee on “Inflation Volatility and Activism of Monetary Policy” (November 22, 2013); and Sanket Mohapatra on “The Effect of Quantitative Easing on Financial Flows to Developing Countries” (August 07, 2014).

India Policy Forum 2013|14 volume released

The India Policy Forum 2013|14 , volume 10 was released by Dr Surjit S Bhalla and Dr Shekhar Shah at a conference being held at the India International Centre. The journal contains the papers and discussions presented at the India Policy Forum held in July 2013. Shekhar Shah (NCAER), Barry Bosworth (Brookings), and Arvind Panagariya (Columbia) are the editors of the 2013-14 volume.
The topics the IPF has dealt with over the years cover a broad sweep of macro, international, and sector challenges that the India economy has faced and the many successes and failures of policymaking over the past decade.  IPF research papers are invited on the strength of their policy-relevance and represent some of the best empirical research on India being done globally.  The IPF Volume is currently the most highly ranked economics journal out of India based on RePEc citation counts.  An international Research Panel of India- and overseas-based researchers with an abiding policy interest in India supports this initiative through advice, active participation at the annual IPF Conference, and the search for innovative papers that promise fresh insights.  An international Advisory Panel of distinguished economists provides overall guidance.
The publication is be available on order through its publisher, SAGE.

The India Policy Forum 2014

The India Policy Forum, now its eleventh continuous year, is organized by NCAER in New Delhi every year in cooperation with the Brookings Institution. Its objective is to promote rigorous empirical research on Indian economic policy with commissioned papers, an annual two-day conference leading to a volume, the India Policy Forum Volume published by SAGE, and the annual IPF Lecture. The IPF explores and provides insights on India’s rapidly evolving and often tumultuous economic transition and the underlying policy reforms that are driving it. It has easily become the apex annual economic policy discussion event in New Delhi.

The 2014 IPF on July 15-16 featured an exciting mix of five papers and ended with a policy roundtable on how the new Indian government in New Delhi can improve India’s investment and business climates. See the detailed 2014 IPF Program and download the papers for the 2014 IPF from the program. A highlight of the 2014 IPF was the annual IPF Lecture delivered by Dr Surjit Bhalla, member of NCAER’s Governing Body and Chairman of OxUS Investments, on Changing Mindsets, Accelerating Growth, Reducing Inequality.

The topics the IPF has dealt with over the years cover a broad sweep of macro, international, and sector challenges that the India economy has faced and the many successes and failures of policymaking over the past decade. IPF research papers are invited on the strength of their policy-relevance and represent some of the best empirical research on India being done globally. The IPF Volume is currently the most highly ranked economics journal out of India based on RePEc citation counts.

An international Research Panel of India- and overseas-based researchers with an abiding policy interest in India supports this initiative through advice, active participation at the annual IPF Conference, and the search for innovative papers that promise fresh insights. An international Advisory Panel of distinguished economists provides overall guidance. Shekhar Shah (NCAER), Barry Bosworth (Brookings), and Arvind Panagariya (Columbia) are the editors of the 2013-14 volume to be released at the 2014 IPF.

The IPF has been generously supported by a select group of Indian corporate partners that over the years have included the Tatas, HDFC, Reliance Industries, SBI, HSBC, IDFC, and Citibank. This support reflects their deep institutional commitment to rigorous high-quality policy research that helps promote informed policy debates and sound, evidence-based policymaking.

IPF Advisory Panel: Shankar Acharya, Isher Ahluwalia, Montek Ahluwalia, Pranab Bardhan, Jagdish Bhagwati, Barry Bosworth, Willem Buiter, Stanley Fischer , Vijay Kelkar, Mohsin Khan, Anne Krueger, Ashok Lahiri, Rakesh Mohan, Arvind Panagariya, Shekhar Shah, T.N. Srinivasan, Nicholas Stern, Lawrence Summers, John Williamson.

IPF Research Panel: Abhijit Banerjee, Kaushik Basu, Surjit Bhalla, Mihir Desai, Shantayanan Devarajan, Esther Duflo, Subir Gokarn, Jeffery Hammer, Vijay Joshi, Devesh Kapur, Kenneth M. Kletzer, Robert Lawrence, Karthik Muralidharan, Rajnish Mehra, Dilip Mookherjee, Urjit Patel, Ila Patnaik, Raghuram Rajan, Indira Rajaraman, M. Govinda Rao, Rohini Somanathan, Ajay Shah and Arvind Virmani.

Innovations in Data Collection: The Chitwan Valley Family Study in Nepal

The Chitwan Valley Family Study (CVFS) is an 18-year old, multi-level, panel study of communities, households, and individuals based on multi-mode, mixed-methods data collection built around cutting-edge, computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and mobile phone technologies. CVFS serves as a unique laboratory based at ISER-N for interdisciplinary social and economic research in the heterogeneous, high-mobility setting of the Chitwan Valley in Nepal’s Inner Terai region.  CVFS investigates the impact of this rapidly changing context on family formation using a combination of ethnographic, archival, geo-spatial, and survey methods. CVFS tracks domestic and international migrants and provides continuous measurement of community change going back seven decades and backed by 17 years of monthly demographic event data.  CVFS data are available through ICPSR, the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research at Michigan, www.icpsr.umich.edu.

At this seminar on the “Innovations in Data Collection: The Chitwan Valley Family Study in Nepal”, Dr Dirgha Ghimire from the University of Michigan and the Institute for Social and Environmental Research in Nepal (ISER-N) discussed study’s design and its evolution, including tracking respondents over time and space and the use of innovative life history calendars for data collection using multi-level retrospective histories and measurements between panels. He described how CAPI makes it possible to collect high-quality panel data in less-than ideal field conditions but with active, real-time survey management at ISER-N and Michigan. As panel studies around the world have shown, understanding the consequences of rapid social, economic, and environmental change for policy design, implementation and monitoring has become critical in all settings. Dr Ghimire explored how the innovative design and execution of CVFS can be useful for similar cultural settings, such as in India. Prof. Reeve Vanneman, University of Maryland provided his comments as the discussant for the seminar.  The Q & A that followed was a platform for some very thoughtful discussions in this subject area.

Dr Dirgha Ghimire is the Director of ISER-N and Research Associate Professor at the Population Studies Center and Faculty Associate at the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan.

NCAER-IDS Conference: Undernutrition in India and Public Policy

This conference organised by NCAER and Institute of Development Studies is a part of a collaborative project which explores the reasons as to why India’s burgeoning growth rates have not translated into better nutrition outcomes for its people,. It aims to understand and shape the current policy process around the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA) as well as restructuring of Public Distribution System (PDS) and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) that can lead to improved nutritional outcomes and better food security.
A welcome address by Dr Sonalde Desai, NCAER and a keynote address by Dr Veena Rao, Advisor, Karnataka Nutrition Mission set the tone for this three day workshop held at the Heritage Village Resort, Manesar, Gurgaon. The conference was platform to present and discuss on issues ranging from identifying the gaps in the nutrition agenda to the role of households in shaping malnutrition and appraisal in the environmental context. The following sessions saw interesting debates on improving the service delivery and on whether employment and agricultural policies influence diet. The governance challenges where discussed in light of the National Food Security Act followed by a policy roundtable, chaired by Dr Shekhar Shah, Director General of NCAER on India’s Malnutrition Challenge and how India’s New Government should tackle the issues. This very interactive workshop was attended by researchers, academicians, policy makers from India and abroad.

    Get updates from NCAER