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

Articles by Nirvikar SinghSubscribe to Nirvikar Singh

Analysing the Structural Change and Growth Relationship in India

Examining the link between structural change and growth in India, this study constructs indices of structural change, and performs a panel data analysis using data for India's 16 major states. It finds that there is a one-way positive effect of structural change on growth during the 2000-06 period. This finding emerges when one allows the disturbances to be heteroscedastic, contemporaneously cross-sectionally correlated, and autocorrelated. The results are mostly reinforced when the sample is divided into richer and poorer states.

Regional Inequality in India in the 1990s

This note examines changes in regional inequality in India in the 1990s using data for 210 of India's districts, spread across nine states. The methodology is that of cross-section growth regressions, which seek to explain longer-run growth rates in terms of initial conditions of development. By identifying these connections, it seeks to illuminate the role of physical infrastructure, financial development, and human capital in infl uencing regional patterns of growth. In turn, this may have implications for government policies at the national and state levels.

Estimating a Monetary Policy Rule for India

This paper investigates whether the seemingly discretionary and flexible approach of the Reserve Bank of India can in practice be described by a Taylor-type rule. It estimates an exchange-rate-augmented Taylor rule for India over the period Quarter 1 of 1980 to Quarter 4 of 2008. It investigates monetary policy changes between the pre- and post-liberalisation periods in order to capture the potential impact of macroeconomic structural changes on the rbi's monetary policy conduct. Overall, it finds that the output gap seems to matter more to rbi than inflation, there is greater sensitivity to consumer price inflation, exchange rate changes do not constitute an important policy factor, and the post-1998 conduct of monetary policy seems to have changed in the direction of less inertia.

Modelling of Foreign Capital Flows and Reserves: Further Response

Capital Flows and Reserves Further Response NIRVIKAR SINGH, T N SRINIVASAN usually defined as a balanced growth path The second round of comments from Sen (2005) on Singh and Srinivasan (2004, 2005) suggests that some points of our paper apparently need further clarification. In doing so we distinguish between possible errors of logic and matters of interpretation and judgment.

Exchange Rates, Deficits and Capital Flows

Exchange Rates, Deficits and Capital Flows T N SRINIVASAN, NIRVIKAR SINGH Lal, Bery and Pant (2005, hereafter LBP) assert that

Patterns in Centre-State Fiscal Transfers

India's federal system is distinguished by tax and expenditure assignments that result in large vertical fiscal imbalances, and consequent transfers from the central government to the state governments. Several channels are used for these transfers: the Finance Commission, the Planning Commission, and central government ministries. This article uses panel data on centre-state transfers to examine how the economic and political importance of states influences the level and composition of per capita transfers, as well as differences in temporal patterns of Planning Commission and Finance Commission transfers. We find evidence that states with indications of greater bargaining power seem to receive larger per capita transfers, and that there is greater temporal variation in Planning Commission transfers.

Foreign Capital, Inflation, Sterilisation, Crowding Out and Growth

Much of the policy debate on India's fiscal deficits, exchange rate management and reserves management policies is either model-free or uses ad hoc models. In order to understand some of the puzzles in India's current macroeconomic situation, a coherent intertemporal model is required, in which both private and public savings and investment behaviour are behaviourally specified, and growth, government deficits and other macroeconomic variables are determined in equilibrium. The goal here is to provide some starting points for further theoretical analysis, which could then be used for empirical work that could have policy relevance.

Regional Inequality in India

We discuss the relationship of our initial paper [Singh, Bhandari, Chen and Khare 2003] to the work of Deaton and Dreze (2002).

Regional Inequality in India

There are concerns that regional inequality in India has increased after the economic reforms of 1991. This concern is supported by various statistical analyses. This paper shows that the conclusions are sensitive to what measures of attainment are used. In particular, human development indices do not show the same increase in regional inequality. Furthermore, looking at consumption and credit indicators for regions disaggregated below the state level also suggests that inequality trends may not be as bad as suggested by State Domestic Product data, although the greater strength of the economies of the western and southern states emerges in the results. Finally, policy implications within the context of India's evolving federal polity are briefly discussed.

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