Estimates of the unreported economy in India

This paper presents estimates of India's unofficial economy on a yearly basis for the period 1967 to 1978. These estimates implicitly revise the GNP, per capita and other related statistics for this period. The technique employed has been recently used to determine the size of the unreported economies in U.S.A. and Canada. The results indicate that the unreported activity as a proportion of official GNP has grown from 9.5 per cent in 1967 to nearly 49 per cent by 1978. High taxes have contributed significantly to the growth of the unofficial economy. A 1 per cent increase in overall taxes leads to more than 3 per cent increase in the unofficial economy relative to the official economy.

Overshootings and Reversals: The Role of Monetary Policy

This paper provides evidence on the relationship between monetary policy and the exchange rate in the aftermath of currency crises taking into account the role of a fragile banking system. It analyzes a large set of currency crises that led to real exchange rate undervaluations from a sample of 80 countries in the period 1980 to 1998. First, the paper evaluates whether tight monetary policy increases substantially the probability of reversing the undervaluation through nominal appreciation of the exchange rate rather than through higher inflation. Second, using panel data, the paper estimates the relationship between real exchange rates and real interest rates. We find that tight monetary policy facilitates the reversal of the real exchange rate through nominal appreciation rather than inflation. In contrast, when the economy is also facing a banking crisis, tight monetary policy may not have the same effect.

Growth and Election Outcomes in a Developing Country.

With the exception Brander and Drazen (2008), who use a comprehensive cross-country database consisting of both developed and developing countries, the hypothesis that rapid growth helps incumbents win elections has been tested exclusively for the developed countries (e.g., Ray Fair 1978). But since sustained rapid growth offers the prospect of pulling vast numbers of the voters out of poverty within a generation, such an effect is far more likely to be present in the developing rather than developed countries. In this paper, we offer the first test of the hypothesis on a large developing and poor country, India, which has seen its economy grow 8 to 9 percent recently. We first generalize the Fair model to allow for multiple candidates instead for just two and then test it using crossstate data. We find quantitatively large and statistically robust effect of growth on the prospects of the candidates of the state incumbent parties to win elections. Specifically, we use the data on 422 candidates in the 2009 parliamentary elections and show that the candidates of incumbent parties in high-growth states have much better prospects of victory than those in low-growth states.

The Service Sector as India's Road to Economic Growth?

Among fast growing developing countries, India is distinctive for the role of theservice sector. However, sceptics have raised doubts about both the quality andsustainability of the increase in service sector activity and its implications foreconomic development. Using National Accounts Statistics and cross-county data, weshow that the growth of services has been broad-based. We show that the growth ofservice sector employment is not simply disguised manufacturing activity. We alsofind that the skilled-unskilled mix of labour in the two sectors is becomingincreasingly similar. Hence, it is no longer obvious that manufacturing is the maindestination for the vast majority of Indian labour moving into the modern sector andthat modern services are only a viable destination for the highly skilled few. To theextent that the expansion of both modern manufacturing and modern services isconstrained by the availability of skilled labour, this just underscores the importancefor India of continuing to invest in labour skills. We conclude that sustainingeconomic growth and raising living standards will require shifting labour out ofagriculture into both manufacturing and services and not just into one or the other.Services, Growth, Structural change, India, Employment

Does Monetary Policy Stabilize the Exchange Rate Following a Currency Crisis?

This paper provides evidence on the relationship between monetary policy and the exchange rate in the aftermath of currency crises. It analyzes a large dataset of currency crises in 80 countries for the period 1980-98. The main question addressed is whether monetary policy can increase the probability of reversing a postcrisis undervaluation through nominal appreciation rather than higher inflation. We find that tight monetary policy facilitates the reversal of currency undervaluation through nominal appreciation. When the economy also faces a banking crisis, the results are not robust and depend on the specification. Copyright 2003, International Monetary Fund

Performance of Indian Manufacturing in the Post Reform Period

Many emerging countries in recent decades have relied on a development strategy that focused primarily on promoting the manufacturing sector and the exports of manufactured goods. However, an acceleration of growth of output and employment in manufacturing has eluded India. This is despite the fact that the central focus of the reforms in the 1980s and 1990s was to unshackle the manufacturing sector. Instead it is the services sector which has grown rapidly, contributing about two-third of GDP growth in recent years. This paper discusses the reasons behind the modest performance of the manufacturing sector in India post reforms. It argues that there are many factors that have inhibited the growth of industrial sector in India. One major factor is the rigid and strict labor laws which have affected the industrial performance in a number of ways, by keeping the size of the establishments small, by not encouraging the production of labor intensive goods, by pushing activities to the unorganized sector, and by keeping the Indian industry uncompetitive. Besides the labor laws other factors that are responsible for the modest performance of the manufacturing sector include difficulty in the acquisition of land for industrial use, inadequate financing and infrastructure, and cumbersome business climate. The paper presents arguments and evidence which shows the importance of these factors.Delicesning, employment, growth, India, infrastructure, labor market regulations, liberalization, manufacturing, reforms, services

Does monetary policy stabilize the exchange rate following a currency crisis?

This paper provides evidence on the relationship between monetary policy and the exchange rate in the aftermath of currency crises. It analyzes a large data set of currency crises in 80 countries in the period 1980 to 1998. The main question addressed is: can monetary policy significantly alter the probability of reversing the post-crisis undervaluation through nominal appreciation rather than higher inflation? We find that tight monetary policy facilitates the reversal of currency undervaluation through nominal appreciation rather than inflation. When the economy is also facing a banking crisis, depending on the specification, tight monetary policy may not have the same effect.

Study of feedback retrial queueing system with working vacation, setup time, and perfect repair

This manuscript analyses a retrial queueing system with working vacation, interruption, feedback, and setup time with the perfect repair. In the proposed model, the server takes vacation whenever the system gets empty but it still serves the customers at a relatively lower speed. The concept of power saving is included in the model. To save the power the server is turned off immediately on being empty at vacation completion instant. The customer who arrives when the system is turned off activates the server and he has to wait for his turn till the server is turned on. The unreliable server may sometimes fail to activate during setup. It is then sent for repair and repaired server immediately starts serving the waiting customers. Using probability generating function, explicit expressions for system size and different states of server for the model are obtained and results are analyzed graphically using MATLAB software