Rural Credit in India in Peril

This review article uses the contributions in this important book “Financial Liberalization and Rural Credit in India” to look at the policies surrounding rural credit in India, its links with the macro-context and the situation on the ground in the post-reform period.Development banking, rural credit, financial liberalization, informalization, micro-credit, credit-deposit ratio, cooperatives.

Financial Liberalization and the Agrarian Sector: India and Kenya Compared

The agrarian sector in many developing countries has been going through a phase of slowdown, at times aggravating to a crisis, which has called for serious research and introspection into the policies and policy regimes that underlie their development trajectories. This paper looks at one set of important policies, namely the policies of financial liberalisation and traces its linkages with the agrarian sector. It uses the context of two developing economies, India and Kenya that were married to the idea of development banking in the 1950s and 1960s but have liberalized the economy since then, to understand the impact of financial liberalization on the agrarian sector.Financial sector, directed credit, financial liberalization, India, Kenya, agriculture, marketing.

Spikes in the SED and Ripples in the Outskirts of Galaxies

We describe a new method that allows us to quantitatively characterize galactic satellites from analysis of disturbances in outer gas disks, without requiring knowledge of their optical light. We have demonstrated the validity of this method, which we call Tidal Analysis, by applying it to local spirals with known optical companions, including M51 and NGC 1512. These galaxies span the range from having a low mass companion (~ one-hundredth the mass of the primary galaxy) to a fairly massive companion (~ one-third the mass of the primary galaxy). This approach has broad implications for many areas of astrophysics - for the indirect detection of dark matter (or dark-matter dominated dwarf galaxies), and for galaxy evolution in its use as a decipher of the dynamical impact of satellites on galactic disks. Here, we present some preliminary results on the emergent SEDs and images, calculated along the time sequence of these dynamical simulations using the 3-D self-consistent Monte Carlo radiative transfer code RADISHE. We explore star formation prescriptions and how they affect the emergent SEDs and images. Our goal is to identify SED colors that are primarily affected by the galaxy's interaction history, and not significantly affected by the choice of star formation prescription. If successful, we may be able to utilize the emergent UV-IR SED of the primary galaxy to understand its recent interaction history.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, proceedings of invited talk at IAU Symposium No. 284, The Spectral Energy Distribution of Galaxie

Monetary Policy and the Credit Channel: Evidence from India

Credit channel of monetary transmission mechanism provides an alternative transmission channel of monetary shock through the asset side of the banking system. Based on the literature on market imperfection, it presents some appealing arguments on supply side effects of innovations in monetary policy, which are of relevance to developing countries. We test the empirical validity of credit channel in India in the context of the mid-nineties episode of the adverse monetary shock. The evidence suggests the operation of a balancesheet channel with the effect of an adverse monetary shock falling disproportionately on bank-dependent firms. The evidence in respect to an aggregate lending channel is mixed.Credit channel, monetary policy, balancesheet, India, external sources of funds, bank lending, commercial paper, capital markets, random effects model.

Global Behavior of Solutions to Two Classes of Second Order Rational Difference Equations

For nonnegative real numbers $\alpha$, $\beta$, $\gamma$, $A$, $B$ and $C$ such that $B+C>0$ and $\alpha+\beta+\gamma >0$, the difference equation \begin{equation*} x_{n+1}=\displaystyle\frac{\alpha +\beta x_{n}+\gamma x_{n-1}}{A+B x_{n}+C x_{n-1}}, \quad n=0,1,2,... %, \quad x_{-1},x_{0}\in [0,\infty) \end{equation*} has a unique positive equilibrium. A proof is given here for the following statements: \medskip \noindent Theorem 1. {\it For every choice of positive parameters $\alpha$, $\beta$, $\gamma$, $A$, $B$ and $C$, all solutions to the difference equation \begin{equation*} x_{n+1}=\displaystyle\frac{\alpha +\beta x_{n}+\gamma x_{n-1}}{A+B x_{n}+C x_{n-1}}, \quad n=0,1,2,..., \quad x_{-1},x_{0}\in [0,\infty) \end{equation*} converge to the positive equilibrium or to a prime period-two solution.} \medskip \noindent Theorem 2. {\it For every choice of positive parameters $\alpha$, $\beta$, $\gamma$, $A$, $B$ and $C$, all solutions to the difference equation \begin{equation*} x_{n+1}= \displaystyle\frac{\alpha +\beta x_{n}+\gamma x_{n-1}}{B x_{n}+C x_{n-1}}, \quad n=0,1,2,..., \quad x_{-1},x_{0}\in (0,\infty) \end{equation*} converge to the positive equilibrium or to a prime period-two solution.}Comment: 23 page

The Value of Improved Public Services : An Application of the Choice Experiment Method to Estimate the Value of Improved Wastewater Treatment Infrastructure in India

In this paper we employ a stated preference environmental valuation technique, namely the choice experiment method, to estimate local publics willingness to pay (WTP) for improvements in the capacity and technology of a sewage treatment plant (STP) in Chandernagore municipality, located on the banks of the River Ganga in India. A pilot choice experiment study is administered to 150 randomly selected Chandernagore residents and the data are analysed using the conditional logit model with interactions. The results reveal that residents of this municipality are willing to pay significant amounts in terms of higher monthly municipality taxes to ensure the full capacity of the STP is used for primary treatment and the technology is upgraded to enable secondary treatment. Overall, the results reported in this paper supports increased investments to improve the capacity and technology of STPs to reduce water pollution, and hence environmental and health risks that are currently threatening the sustainability of the economic, cultural and religious values this sacred river generates.choice experiment method, conditional logit model, River Ganga, sewage treatment plant, water quality, water quantity