One view is that concessions demanded by and granted to interests groups are responsible for steady fiscal decline, and delay in reforms. We argue that negative supply shocks combined with the political objective of protecting the poor can build in incentives leading to these results. Pricing...

The paper explores contractual types of public private partnerships that would deliver maximum value in the Indian context. Under incomplete contracts social institutions, tailored to the specific context, can contribute to effective governance. We first draw out some implications of contract...

A new specification is employed to test for the degree of endogeneity of commercial bank credit, and its response to structural variables relevant to the Indian context. Our specification allows us to both identify money supply in a single equation, and disentangle the contribution of the...

Stylized facts for South Asia show the dominance of supply shocks, amplified by macroeconomic policies and procyclical current accounts. Interest and exchange rate volatility rose initially on liberalization, but fell as markets deepened. A gradual middling through approach to openness and...

A short-run model incorporates instantaneous portfolio equilibrium with macroeconomic flows to clarify the structure of real-financial sector interactions. If equity and foreign exchange markets are introduced in structuralist theories of asset markets in developing countries, the key result...

The chapter argues for rules to coordinate monetary and fiscal policies. But the rules are rule like only in imposing forward-looking behaviour, while they allow the discretion to respond to shocks. They would serve to anchor expectations, and align private sector actions with desired outcomes....

In this paper we assess the record of different post reform governments in meeting their targets and improving both delivery and finances. A variety of indices are constructed, and consistency checks devised to measure relative performance. No government has achieved its targets, but the...

Rising deficits and high debt ratios characterized currency crises in countries with low private savings rates and low population densities. But in emerging markets with large population transferring to more productive employment, sustainable debts and deficits may be higher. Debt ratios fall...

Resurgence in Indian inflation since 2007 was associated with sharp food and oil price inflation. Propagation mechanisms that allow these relative prices to affect aggregate prices include governance failures, the effect of food prices on wages, exchange rates on costs and the response to cost...