Opinion: Arun Tiwari, Sumit Kane and Ajay Mahal. Affordable hospital care requires health-care financing reforms that go beyond price regulations. Benchmark for pricing In an unregulated market-driven scenario, health-care providers focus on profit through higher prices and overprovision of care (supplier-induced demand). One potential solution, “yardstick competition”, involves regulatory authorities setting benchmark prices based on...   Read More

Opinion: Udaibir Das and Wayne Byres.  The crucial role of implementing Basel standards The Basel Committee implementation programme has been integral to international financial architecture. Having celebrated its 50th anniversary on 24-25 April, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has journeyed from a humble forum for G7 bank supervisors to a titan among global financial...   Read More

Opinion: Jyoti Thakur. While global unemployment dips, South Asia grapples with declining labour force participation and widening job gap that put a generation at risk. The world has encountered a series of extraordinary events in the last five years that transformed everyday life and economic activity. The COVID-19 pandemic was such an event that brought...   Read More

Opinion: Palash Baruah and DL Wankhar. In communities where education is given greater importance & viewed as a gateway to success, households are more likely to allocate a larger portion of income toward educational expenses. Education is the cornerstone upon which nations build their future. It is the bedrock of social and economic growth at...   Read More

Opinion: Saurabh Bandyopadhyay and Laxmi Joshi. Despite making significant contributions and accounting for a large share of the workforce, women’s concerns and interests are frequently disregarded. India is second only to China in fish production. In 2022-23, India produced around 18 million tonnes, accounting for 8 per cent of global production. About 32 per cent...   Read More

Opinion: Poonam Gupta. Odisha, India’s eleventh largest state by population and fourteenth largest by size of economy, has come a long way during the last two decades. At nearly $ 100 billion, if Odisha were a country, its economy would be larger than Tanzania, Sri Lanka or Ghana. The growth momentum has been evident across...   Read More

Opinion: Barry Eichengreen. HONG KONG – The gap between productivity growth in the United States and Europe paints a stark and, for Europeans, depressing picture. In the two decades since 2004, US productivity growth, as measured by the value of output per hour worked, has been more than double that of the eurozone. Whereas eurozone...   Read More

Opinion: G C Manna. While the methodology for the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey is more refined now, the survey needs to address some methodological challenges. The National Sample Survey (NSS) Office released the key results of the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022-23 in late February. These primarily include all-India estimates of the average household...   Read More

Opinion: Sanjib Pohit and Chetana Chaudhuri. EVs’ growth may suffer due to problems of battery availability and disposal, just as biofuel has been hit by feedstock constraint. E-mobility seems to be the buzzword in India now. Almost every other day, some news comes out on how much progress India has made in the use of...   Read More

Opinion: C.S. Mohapatra. The aggregation of personal and financial data through fintech platforms presents an attractive target for hackers, leading to concerns over data privacy and security. The digitalized payment landscape, while making transactions more efficient and cost-effective, has unintendedly heightened the risk of cyber frauds and personal data misuse. Cybercriminals exploit vulnerabilities in the...   Read More