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

LiberalisationSubscribe to Liberalisation

Outward FDI and Cross-border M&As

Although the new foreign direct investment policy and other policy packages, including “Make in India,” is expected to tap more foreign savings and better technology and transform the Indian economy into a manufacturing hub, most successful firms are investing abroad. Given this context, this paper makes an effort to understand the trends and nature of outward foreign direct Investment by Indian firms and their implications. The paper argues that though the Indian overseas acquiring manufacturing firms perform relatively better than their counterparts, its adverse impact on the trade deficit and balance of payments need to be tackled.

India’s Tryst with Liberalisation

India after Liberalisation: An Overview by Bimal Jalan, India: HarperCollins , 2021, pp 240, $21.94 (paperback).

Is India Ready for Tariff Reforms?

Recent trade models with fi rm heterogeneity predict that trade liberalisation reduces the number of fi rms and the fi rms’ markups, while it increases the average size of fi rms. The present study attempts to test these predictions in the context of trade reforms in India with the Annual Survey of Industries data over two decades (1987–88 to 2017–18) by using a difference-in-difference approach and comments on the recent policy framework in that light.

Preparing the Script for Privatisation

The privatisation of Air India marks the gradual erosion of the public sector and inclusive employment.

 

India’s Far from Neo-liberal Economic Order in the Modi Era

India’s economic order is far from neo-liberal. The state, and thus politicians, have retained very substantial powers over market forces. Expectations that the Modi government would liberalise audaciously have been disappointed. Especially since mid-2019, it has used its remaining powers to intimidate corporate interests, in pursuit of its main objective: top-down control over all power centres. Thus, in crucial ways, the economic order has become less liberal (or neo-liberal) than before.

Is ‘Islamic Finance’ Islamic?

Riba could mean usury, interest, economic rent and even surplus value (in the Marxian sense). Riba is “un-Islamic.” Without riba, capital accumulation, and capitalism itself will not be possible. However, those who own capital in the Muslim world have taken charge of defining what is Islamic and what is not. The result? They find ways to multiply it in modes that benefit only themselves, just as their non-Islamic counterparts.

Effective Tax Rates for Indian Companies Post-liberalisation

This article studies the effective tax rate for Indian companies from 1990 to 2010, covering the period just before liberalisation of the economy and tax reforms in 1991 and later. It examines the effect of a declining corporate tax rate on the gap between book profit and taxable profit. A narrowing gap between statutory tax rates and effective tax rates after liberalisation indicates increased voluntary compliance.

National Policy on Education 2016

Any contemporary education policy will need to address the democratic and economic aspirations of the younger citizenry and must declare those concrete steps that would endure the realisation of those aims. But that has not been the case with the National Policy on Education 2016. The new education policy, as proposed, chooses not to address the fundamental issues plaguing the education system but instead, it propagates a corporate, neo-liberal, neo-cultural, a Sanskritised, global and market-oriented education system which is governed by a wholly separate and centralised bureaucracy, where state government power and oversight is minimal.

Bad Bank Proposal for India

There have been two main proposals to tackle the stressed assets problem of Indian banks since the beginning of this year. Both proposals are based implicitly on the financial intermediation theory of banking. The alternative credit creation theory of banking opens up other possibilities. One such possibility is a partial Jubilee financed by zero coupon perpetual bonds.

‘Surgical Strikes’ on Policies of Liberalisation

A response to Amit Bhaduri’s article titled “Danger Zones of High Economic Growth” (EPW, 22 October 2016). Important questions of policy and economic understanding are raised.

Stock Market in a Liberalised Economy

Considerable debate rages about the impact of deregulation on the efficiency of the market. Free market advocates all too often tend to undermine the unruly behaviour of stock markets in the post liberalisation scenario. On the other hand, opponents believe that stock market reforms may lead to over-speculation, financial crisis and even a misallocation of resources at the cost of real sector growth and stability, as has been seen in the case of India. However, there is now an increasing recognition in LDCs that given the competition for foreign funding and limited availability of domestic finance, the equity market can play a beneficial role in providing capital to the productive sector as well as facilitate the process of privatisation.

Pages

Back to Top