India's policy stance on reserves and the currency

Over the last decade, India engaged in substantial liberalisation on the current account and the capital account. At the same time, a fully articulated policy framework defining the currency regime is not known in the public domain. In this paper, we seek to characterise then ature of the currency regime, in the period after the Asian crisis. This is closely linked to better understanding the phenomenon of reserves accumulation of the recent years. Our results suggest that the main focus of the currency regime has been to deliver a low volatility of the nominal exchange rate. The rupee appears to be a de facto peg to the USD. In the last one year, reserves accumulation cannot be explained by insurance motivations; it seems to be a passive side effect of maintaining the currency regime

The Consequences of currency intervention in India

Currency management in India has focused on delivering low levels of currency volatility. In earlier years, the implementation of the currency regime was enabled by the presence of capital controls. In recent years, India has made much progress towards capital account convertibility. This paper closely examines India's experience with the implementation of the currency regime in two episodes: 1993-95 and after 2002. We argue that the implementation of the existing currency regime now induces distorted monetary policy and fiscal costs. These costs of implementing the currency regime need to be factored into the choice of currency regime

The Indian currency regime and its consequences.

While the Indian rupee is claimed to be a `market determined ex-change rate', there is a gulf between the de facto and de jure exchange rate regime. An examination of the data reveals that India has a de facto rupee-dollar pegged exchange rate. From the early 1990s on- wards, as India as reintegrated with the world economy, the implementation of this pegged exchange rate has induced increasing monetary policy distortions. The volatility of the rupee-dollar rate has sub-stantial variation which have considerable implications for economic agents in understanding currency risk and monetary policy. However these changes in course have not been preceded by announcements from RBI.Money

Asia confronts the impossible trinity.

In this paper, we examine capital account openness and exchange rate flexibility in 11 Asian countries. Asia has made slow progress on de jure capital account openness, but has made much more progress on de facto capital account openness. While there is a slow pace of increase in exchange rate flexibility, most Asian countries continue to have largely inflexible exchange rates. This combination - of moving forward with de facto capital account integration without bringing in exchange rate exibility - has lead to procyclicality of monetary policy when capital flows are procyclical. The paper emphasises the case for a consistent monetary policy framework.

Why India choked when Lehman broke

India has an elaborate system of capital controls which impede cap- ital mobility and particularly short-term debt. Yet, when the global money market fell into turmoil after the bankruptcy of Lehman Broth- ers on 13/14 September 2008, the Indian money market immediately experienced considerable stress, and the operating procedures of mon- etary policy broke down. We suggest that Indian multinationals were using the global money market and were short of dollars on 15 Septem- ber. They borrowed in India and took capital out of the country. We make three predictions that follow from this hypothesis, and _nd that the evidence matches these predictions. This suggests an important role for Indian multinationals in India's evolution towards de facto convertibility.capital controls, global nancial crisis, Indian multina- tionals, de facto convertibility

Managing capital flows: The case of India.

From the early 1990s, India embarked on easing capital controls. Liberalization emphasised openness towards equity flows, both FDI and portfolio flows. In particular, there are few barriers in the face of portfolio equity flows. In recent years, a massive increase in the value of foreign ownership of Indian equities has come about, largely reflecting improvements in the size, liquidity and corporate governance of Indian firms. While the system of capital controls appears formidable, the de facto openness on the ground is greater than is apparent, particularly because of the substantial enlargement of the current account. These changes to capital account openness were not accompanied by commensurate monetary policy reform. The monetary policy regime has consisted essentially of a pegged exchange rate to the US dollar throughout. Increasing openness on the capital account, coupled with exchange rate pegging, has led to a substantial loss of monetary policy autonomy. The logical way forward now consists of bringing the de jure capital controls uptodate with the de facto convertibility, and embarking on reforms of the monetary policy framework so as to shift the focus of monetary policy away from the exchange rate to domestic inflation.International investment ; Long term capital movements ; International lending and debt problems ; Monetary systems

Foreign shareholding: A decomposition analysis.

Stulz (2005) has emphasised that for home bias to decline, insiders have to reduce ownership so as to make purchase of shares by foreigners possible. We offer a decomposition in the ownership of shares by foreigners into three parts: the change in insider shareholding, the change in market capitalisation and the change in the fraction of outside shareholding that is held by foreigners. As an example, this decomposition is applied to help understand the sharp change in foreign ownership of Indian firms after 2001.Home bias, Foreign investors

Did the Indian capital controls work as a tool of macroeconomic policy?

In 2010 and 2011, there has been a fresh wave of interest in cap- ital controls. India is one of the few large countries with a complex system of capital controls, and hence offers an opportunity to assess the extent to which these help achieve goals of macroeconomic and fi- nancial policy. We find that the capital controls were associated with poor governance, were unable to sustain the erstwhile exchange rate regime, and did not support financial stability. India's experience is thus inconsistent with the revisionist view of capital controls. Macroe- conomic policy in India has moved away from the erstwhile strategies, towards greater exchange rate flexibility combined with capital ac- count liberalisation.Capital controls ; Exchange rate regime ; Monetary policy ; Impossible trinity ; Financial stability