ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Lekha S ChakrabortySubscribe to Lekha S Chakraborty

Did Public Investment Crowd Out Private Investment in India?

The maximum entropy bootstrap method is applied to overcome the econometric constraints of using a short time series after the publication of a new macroeconomic series in India. A short time series (quarterly data) of stationary and non-stationary variables between 2011 and 2016 is used to confirm the positive role of public infrastructure investment. The significant result has policy implications in terms of the current debate, whether public investment “crowds in” rather than “crowds out” private corporate investment in India.

Deficient Public Infrastructure and Private Costs: Evidence for the Water Sector

This paper presents new evidence on the links between public infrastructure provisioning and time allocation related to the water sector in India. Using time-use data, the analysis reveals that worsening public infrastructure affects market work with evident gender differentials. The results also suggest that the access to public infrastructure can lead to substitution effects in time allocation between unpaid work and market work. The broad conclusion is that public investment policy can redress intra-household inequalities in terms of labour supply decisions by supporting initiatives that reduce the allocation of time in non-market work.

I S Gulati: Our Teacher

As his PhD students, we saw the late I S Gulati performing three roles: those of the practising policy-maker, a researcher acutely concerned about the role of fiscal policy in India and a teacher.

Fiscal Deficit and Rate of Interest

This paper examines whether in the financially deregulated regime, shift in the financing pattern of the fiscal deficit away from seigniorage and external debt financing to bond financing has the probability of creating an upward pressure on the rate of interest in India. Using an asymmetric vector autoregressive model, we found that in the deregulated financial regime, the fiscal deficit did not create a rise in the interest rate. Rather, the causality runs from the exante real rate of interest to fiscal deficit. This result is in conformity with the recent trend in Indian public finance where the high interest rate fuelled the accumulation of more debt through increase in interest payments and the consequent debt-deficit spiral.

Gender Bias in South Asia

Human Development in South Asia 2000: The Gender Question by Mahbub ul Haq; Human Development Centre, Oxford University Press; pp 219.

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