This study explores the financial sustainability of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the economic context to identify how macro-level economic decisions affect the micro-level decisions in the microfinance sector in South Asia. For that purpose, the data of 409 South Asian MFIs combined with the macroeconomic variables of respective countries are used over the period 1999–2017. The empirical analysis

Determinism and non-linear behaviour in log-return and conditional volatility time series of the stock market index is examined for twenty-six countries. For this goal, the principal statistical techniques used in this study are a robust estimator of correlation dimension, a normalized non-linear prediction error, and pseudo-periodic surrogate data method. The proposed approach indicates, first, the

This article provides a critical discussion on the working of status as an instrument to elicit desirable effort within an organization. It postulates a comprehensive survey of the studies on incentive, especially non-monetary incentives like status. Different studies are summarized concisely and elaborate comments on the divergent views on valuation for status, the relationship between monetary and

This article explores the effects of political events on foreign exchange returns in Malaysia. We identify five political events in recent history, namely the 13th General Election (GE13), the imprisonment of a key opposition politician, the scandal from the 1MDB exposé, the appointment of a new Central Bank Governor and the 14th General Election (GE14). Using event studies, our findings show that

In an open multi-country economy, the safe assets supply shapes the pattern of international capital flows. A higher productivity growth rate raises the net capital inflows for economies with abundant safe assets, but reduces the net capital inflows for economies with scarce safe assets. The cross-section analysis on a sample of 170 economies over 1980–2013 confirms the theory. The evidence is robust

The objective of the article is to examine the fiscal sustainability of the Indian central government’s finances in the era of rule-based fiscal policy. Asymmetric budgetary adjustment process and revenue–expenditure nexus are also analysed in this article by employing threshold autoregressive models/momentum threshold autoregressive models. Findings of the article reveal emerging issues in fiscal

A federal country like India distributes centrally collected funds through certain distribution rules, framed by the finance commission every five years, which primarily aims at horizontal equity among the states, although the goal of vertical equity has also been accommodated lately. The distribution rules do change, but they are largely governed by population and taxable capacity in a static sense

On one monthly time-series data set of Vietnam economy over 02/2008–09/2018, the Time-Varying-Coefficient VAR model records that the trade-off between inflation and output growth is mitigated by the foreign capital inflows. The inflation is mostly determined by credit supply growth, while output growth is largely driven by foreign direct investment (FDI) capital inflows. A monthly increase of FDI by

The current study attempts to examine the linkage between government (public) spending and economic growth in the broader framework of selected South Asian Nations (SANs), BRICS and other emerging nations by using two sets of empirical modelling over the period 2007–2016 by using inverted U-shaped hypothesis, propounded by Armey curve (1995). The first set has employed system GMM technique to explore

Several strands of the static and dynamic theoretical constructs and the empirical applications in the subject of economics owe substantially to the well-known principles of physical sciences. The present article explores as to how the development of the popular gravity models in international trade can be traced back to Newton’s law of gravitation, and to both Ohm’s Law and Kirchhoff’s Law of current

To demonstrate the impact of informal economy on the official money multiplier in currency supply, we present an extension of the basic money multiplier model. The influence of economic policies may differ if they are based only on official statistics without considering the informal sector. Since most of the activities in informal sector are hidden from authorities, it is widely assumed that these

This study is an attempt to explore social and economic determinants of external debt distress in five selected South Asian countries, that is, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, from 1980 to 2018, by using the contemporary panel fixed effect model and system generalized methods of moments. The findings revealed that the major determinants of external debt distress in selected South

The objective of this study is to investigate the sources of output growth and their convergence in the Middle East and North African countries over the period 1970–2017. Towards this end, the study employs Levin et al. (2002, Journal of Econometrics, vol. 108, pp. 1–24), Fisher-type (Choi, 2001, Journal of International Money and Finance, vol. 20, pp. 249–272) and Im et al. (2003, Journal of Econometrics

In Indian census, the reclassification of villages as small towns (called census towns) has been startling during the decade 2001–2011 and accounted for almost 30 per cent of urbanization, which is significantly larger than their growth rate in previous decades. Though reclassified as towns, they are governed as rural settlements. This article applies urban economic theory along with rural–urban labour

The purpose of the study is to re-examine the issue of the crowding-in/out effect of public investment on private investment by adopting an improved methodology of the ‘nonlinear autoregressive distributive lag’ (NARDL) model. Taking data from 1970 to 2016, the study finds that public investment crowds-in private investment both in the long-run as well as the short-run. However, the short-run elasticity

This article examines the role of financial development and trade openness in promoting private investment in India. We use data (1960– 2013) from the World Development Indicators database. After checking the time series properties of the data, we employ auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) estimation technique to investigate the impact of the concurrent existence of financial development and trade

This article analyses the impact of monetary and fiscal policies on economic growth in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand from 1980:Q1 to 2017:Q1. Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach is employed to determine the long-run relationship. Further, a range of econometric models, such as fully modified least squares method (FMOLS), canonical cointegration regression (CCR) and dynamic ordinary least

While the export-led growth (ELG) hypothesis attracted much attention historically, the import-led growth (ILG) dimension received little attention despite important linkages. The present article studies whether the ELG, ILG, growth-led export (GLE) and growth-led import (GLI) propositions hold in India for the post-reform period. Accordingly, the short-run and the long-run impacts of exports, imports

The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) pegs the Nepalese rupee to the Indian rupee, meaning that the NRB effectively transfers control over the country’s monetary policy to India. It is therefore argued that Indian inflation causes Nepalese inflation. This study investigates whether the NRB should have instead floated the Nepalese rupee and targeted inflation. For this purpose, a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium

The article explains how ‘nudge theory’ can be applied to alleviate the incidence of terrorism. Nudges, which bring about a change in the environment in which individual choice is exercised, do not just modify the behaviour of individuals in a society but thereby influence the social environment which impacts both the human brain and behaviour. Thus, a nudge when appropriately administered to a large

Saumen Chattopadhyay, Macroeconomic of the Black Economy, Delhi, India: Orient Blackswan Publisher, 2018, ₹666, 276 pp. (hardcover). ISBN: 978-93-5287-281-7.

The withdrawal of high-denomination paper money in India—popularly termed ‘demonetization’—has generated interest among common people to understand what the usual macroeconomic consequences of such one-time monetary shock are. This article conjectures (a) that such unanticipated supply-side replacement of paper money of higher denominations may lead to a currency ‘trap’ in the short run and a permanent

The present study estimates various specifications of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) models for India over 1996Q2 to 2017Q2 using Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation, separately. The empirical results suggest that the data support all the specifications of the Phillips curve models based on both the CPI and WPI inflations. However, the backward looking and

Kaushik Basu. An Economist in the Real World: The Art of Policy Making in India. New Delhi: Penguin India, 2016, 256 pp., ₹599. ISBN-13: 978-0670088751.

We study the effects of non-sterilized intervention on a spot foreign exchange (forex) rate using a multi-period game-theoretical model which involves an unspecified number of competitive traders, a finite number of strategic traders (forex dealers) with heterogenous initial money balances, and the central bank of the home country. Simulating the subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium of the two-stage game

The present article considers an endogenous growth model in which the service output is used as intermediate good in commodity sector, tax is imposed on manufacturing product and the revenue earned is invested to create human capital. It is shown that there exists a unique, saddle path stable steady-state growth rate of human capital accumulation and a unique growth-maximizing tax rate. The optimal

This article investigates the impact of fiscal space in donor-countries on their official development aid (ODA) supply. It relies on the indicator of ‘De Facto Fiscal Space’ proposed by Aizenman and Jinjarak (The Fiscal Stimulus of 2009–10: Trade Openness, Fiscal Space and Exchange Rate Adjustment, NBER Working Paper 17427, 2011) and on a panel of 22 donor-countries over the period 1964–2015. The analysis

Many have held that value-added tax (VAT) generates higher revenue which then leads to bigger government spending. They cited the experience of European countries claiming that both the tax rate and the government size have risen over the years. The present study finds that there are exceptions to it based on the state level data of India. The tax was introduced as a replacement for sales tax about

This article attempts to determine the effect of nominal exchange rates on Indian exports between 1996 and 2014. We begin by assuming that the nominal exchange rate can affect export directly as well as indirectly via its pass through on domestic prices. The analysis is conducted with quarterly data after controlling for the effect of exchange rate volatility on exports. The main results that we get

This article describes a macroeconomic framework for analysing the interaction between output, domestic interest rate and exchange rate in the presence of the endogenous risk premium and balance sheet effect of exchange rate depreciation on investment demand. Output is demand determined. There are three assets: money, domestic bonds and foreign bonds. Domestic bonds and foreign bonds are not perfect

This article examines the sustainability of public debt in Bangladesh under alternative future scenarios based on simulation exercises for the period of FY2017 to FY2026. It adopts the debt-stabilizing primary balance approach (DPSBA) and International Monetary Fund/World Bank Debt Sustainability Framework (DSF). The findings of the former indicate that Bangladesh will be able to service its increasing