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Neeraj Hatekar

Paanwalas in Mumbai

Property Rights, Social Capital and Informal Sector Livelihood
Vol - XLVII No. 38, September 22, 2012 | Abodh Kumar, Neeraj Hatekar, and Rajani Mathur

How institutions frame economic transactions is crucial to the ability of the poor in the informal sector to fi nd their way out of poverty. The literature points to two crucial aspects of the lived reality of the urban informal sector: the network of social relationships and property rights. This article investigates the manner in which the two interact to determine earning opportunities in the urban informal sector. The study is based on a sample of informal sector paanwalas or retail paan shops across Mumbai. We point out the signifi cant role continuous access to physical space, the arena where property rights and social capital interface, plays in determining earnings.

R for Econometrics

Vol - XLVII No. 03, January 21, 2012 | Neeraj Hatekar

Hands-on Intermediate Econometrics Using R: Templates for Extending Dozens of Practical Examples by Hrishikesh D Vinod (World Scientific), hardcover, pp xxvii + 512, $ 94.

Experimental Economics: A Survey

Vol - XLVI No. 35, August 27, 2011 | Sujoy Chakravarty, Shyam Sunder, Santanu Mitra, Neeraj Hatekar, Gautam Gupta, and Daniel Friedman

Over the past few decades, experimental methods have given economists access to new sources of data and enlarged the set of economic propositions that can be validated. This field has grown exponentially in the past few decades, but is still relatively new to the average Indian academic. The objective of this survey is to familiarise the Indian audience with some aspects of experimental economics. The survey attempts to bring to the interested reader a flavour of this field. The survey is presented in five separate articles after this introduction. The notes and references for all articles are at the end of the survey.

Emergence of Experimental Economics

Vol - XLVI No. 35, August 27, 2011 | Daniel Friedman, Gautam Gupta, Neeraj Hatekar, Santanu Mitra, Shyam Sunder, and Sujoy Chakravarty

The survey begins, in Part 1, with a presentation of the historical emergence of the subject and provides the methodological justification for economics experiments. In presenting the history of the field, Part I also discusses the forces that impelled or impeded its evolution.

Experiments on Individual Decision-Making

Vol - XLVI No. 35, August 27, 2011 | Daniel Friedman, Gautam Gupta, Neeraj Hatekar, Santanu Mitra, Shyam Sunder, and Sujoy Chakravarty

Part 2 of the survey looks at experimental results dealing with individual choice. The discussion compares the two dominant experimental methodologies that govern individual decision-making experiments in social science. It then discusses decision-making experiments under two main heads - the psychology-oriented experiments (or what has now morphed into behavioural economics) and experiments that test observed behaviour against theoretical benchmarks derived from neoclassical microeconomic theory. The last section provides an overview and looks ahead to the future of experiments in decision-making.

Experiments in Macroeconomics and Finance

Vol - XLVI No. 35, August 27, 2011 | Daniel Friedman, Gautam Gupta, Neeraj Hatekar, Santanu Mitra, Shyam Sunder, and Sujoy Chakravarty

Part 3 reviews experiments in finance and economics, with an emphasis on evaluating the learning from such experiments.

Public Goods Experiments and Social Preferences

Vol - XLVI No. 35, August 27, 2011 | Daniel Friedman, Gautam Gupta, Neeraj Hatekar, Santanu Mitra, Shyam Sunder, and Sujoy Chakravarty

Part 4 of the survey offers an overview of public goods experiments, an area where experimentation has been particularly fruitful.

Experiments in the Indian Context

Vol - XLVI No. 35, August 27, 2011 | Daniel Friedman, Gautam Gupta, Neeraj Hatekar, Santanu Mitra, Shyam Sunder, and Sujoy Chakravarty

Over the past few years, experimental economics has become increasingly visible in research activity in India.The concluding part of this survey offers a brief overview of experiments conducted in the Indian context. These have been largely field experiments.

What Drives Inflation in India: Overheating or Input Costs?

Vol - XLVI No. 34, August 20, 2011 | Ashutosh Sharma, Neeraj Hatekar, and Savita Kulkarni

This study takes a closer look at some of the drivers of inflation in manufacturing prices in India. It indicates that "overheating", which has recently acquired policy focus, drives inflation in the short run, whereas international materials and energy prices drive inflation over the short as well as the long run. The study implies that restrictive monetary policy might be of only limited relevance in controlling non-food inflation. Public policy aimed at minimising the impact of input cost shocks might work better in the long run. In the meanwhile, the restrictive monetary policy followed by the Reserve Bank of India might worsen the downturn that has begun in January 2010.

NCHER and State Universities: An Exercise in Redundancy

Vol - XLV No. 16, April 17, 2010 | Neeraj Hatekar

State universities are the unsung arteries of higher education in India. The strengths and the weaknesses of higher education today are primarily the strengths and weaknesses of these universities. However, the bill to establish the National Commission on Higher Education and Research, as it stands, does not explicate any specific mechanisms to address the crucial problems faced by the state universities. If any, by concentrating all the powers in a single authority, the problems might become even more deeply entrenched once the bill is passed.