National Council of Applied Economic Research
In this paper, we examine the dynamics between inflation uncertainty, beliefs and inflation expectations of firms. Inflation uncertainty and beliefs influence a firm’s perception of the inflation levels, thereby impacting its expected inflation. Using novel survey data on firm inflation expectations, we examine the extent to which crises influence the relationship between inflation uncertainty and... Read More
In this paper, we investigate the macroeconomic and labour market implications of gender equality in unpaid care work and the formalisation of part-time employment in India. The unequal distribution of unpaid care responsibilities significantly limits women's labour force participation, perpetuating gender disparities in employment and economic outcomes. Using the McCall-Mortensen macroeconomic job search framework, this... Read More
Domestic violence is a global phenomenon. We study the interplay of determinants of a woman’s risk of facing intimate partner violence (IPV) for the case of India—using information from up to 235 thousand female survey respondents and exploiting state-level variation in institutions, law enforcement and attitudes. Unless in paid and formal employment, a woman’s economic... Read More
Under the Right to Education Act (2009), the Indian government mandated private schools to reserve 25% of primary school places for socioeconomically disadvantaged children. This study examines the policy’s spillover effect on private schooling costs. Using household survey data and a difference-in-differences approach, it compares private school fees for disadvantaged children across two age cohorts... Read More
We evaluate the earnings and conversion disadvantages that persons with disabilities face in India, which has amongst the highest number of persons with disabilities globally. Our study is unique in that we use two major nationally representative household surveys consisting of over 85 thousand households, alongside a qualitative study to explore the nature and the... Read More
We assess India’s inflation-targeting regime at the eight-year mark. The Reserve Bank of India continues to be a flexible inflation targeter: it responds to both the output gap and inflation when setting policy rates. It has become neither more hawkish nor more reactive with the transition to inflation-targeting. Evidence points to improved outcomes: inflation is... Read More
Geoeconomic fragmentation—the phenomenon of international transactions being increasingly restricted to politically aligned partners—creates risks for individual countries but also opportunities that some hope to seize by becoming “connector” countries. We formalize the concept of connectedness as the property of transacting with international partners drawn from across the ideological spectrum, and explore various policy correlates of... Read More
This paper provides cross-country firm-level evidence on productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI), separately for greenfield FDI and cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As). The granularity of bilateral sector-level FDI datasets allows for addressing possible endogeneity issues by applying a two-step approach whereby an exogenous FDI measure is constructed from a gravity-type regression of bilateral... Read More
With a growing economy and declining poverty, India faces a curious challenge in providing a social safety net to its citizens. Using data from three rounds of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), collected in 2004-5, 2011-12, and 2022-24, this paper shows that households face considerable transition in and out of poverty as the economy... Read More
Globally, women’s share in corporate leadership has been steadily rising, including in India. The female director mandate under The Companies Act (2013) in India marked a significant step toward gender-inclusive corporate leadership, requiring listed firms to have at least one woman on their board. Within a year, the percentage of listed firms without women on... Read More
