Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research

About: Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research is a facility organization based out in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Monetary policy & Inflation. The organization has 307 authors who have published 1021 publications receiving 18848 citations.

Financial Liberalization in India and the Bank Lending Channel of Monetary Transmission

Abstract: The financial reform process has given banks in India a great deal of freedom on both the assets and liabilities (or sources and uses of funds) sides of their balance sheets. To the extent that, financial liberalization has opened up new non-reservable and non-insured sources of funds (like Certificates of Deposits and new issue of equity), any attempts by the central bank to influence bank lending by withdrawing reserves (leading to a fall in deposits) from the banking system could be countered by raising money from these alternate sources leaving bank lending unchanged. It is in this liberalized regime that the 'bank lending channel', which emphasizes the presence of asymmetric information in the financial markets, becomes particularly relevant. In this article we attempt to verify if bank lending is constrained by the availability of insured deposits and whether there exist subgroups of banks that are less constrained. We find that banks in general are constrained in their lending by the availability o...

An empirical analysis of disinvestment policy in India: does ideology matter?

Abstract: Using panel data estimation for limited dependent variables and sample selection models, we identify political, industry specific, firm specific and macroeconomic variables which influenced the dec...

The Electric energy-water nexus: Managing the seasonal linkages of fresh water use in energy sector for sustainable future

Abstract: The fast growing demand for fresh water-coupled with the need to protect the environment has made many areas of India and the rest of the World vulnerable to water shortages for various uses of the economy. As they interact with Electricity Industry, water availability is critical to power generation. With out access to adequate amounts of water for steam generation and cooling, power plants that rely on heat energy to generate electricity cannot operate. Seasonal anomalies in water systems and electricity production are inextricably linked. A change in one of these systems induces a change in the other. Therefore, there is an imperative need to better understand the interrelationship of Electric Energy- water for effective management of serious water related power generation issues. This paper gauges the effects of the some of overlaps and gaps between seasonal anomalies in water availability and growth of power generation in rainy, summer, winter and post monsoon season for power plants of different energy types (Both non-renewable and renewable sources.

Can Insurance Reduce Catastrophic Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditure?

Abstract: In India, the out-of-pocket health expenditure by households accounts for around 70 percent of the total expenditure on health. Large out-of-pocket payments may reduce consumption expenditure on other goods and services and push households into poverty. Recently, health insurance has been considered as one of the possible instruments to reduce impoverishing effects of large out-of-pocket health expenditure. In India, health insurance has limited coverage and the present paper studies whether it has been effective so far. Literature defines out-of-pocket health expenditure as catastrophic if its share in the household budget is more than some arbitrary threshold level. In the present paper, we argue that for households below poverty line any expenditure on health is catastrophic as they are unable to attain the subsistence level of consumption. Thus, we take zero percent as a threshold level to define catastrophic health expenditure and examine the impact of health insurance on probability of incurring catastrophic health expenditure. Our findings show that the extent of OOP health expenditure is lower for insured households in urban areas. Thus, health insurance may prove to be an important policy instrument to reduce OOP health expenditure.

Measuring human development index: The old, the new and the elegant

Abstract: The Human Development Index (HDI) is calculated using normalized indicators from three dimensions- health, education, and standard of living (or income). This paper evaluates three aggregation methods of computing HDI using a set of axioms. The old measure of HDI taking a linear average of the three dimensions satisfies monotonicity, anonymity, and normalization (or MAN) axioms. The current geometric mean approach additionally satisfies the axioms of uniformity, which penalizes unbalanced or skewed development across dimensions. We propose an alternative measure, where HDI is the additive inverse of the distance from the ideal. This measure, in addition to the above-mentioned axioms, also satisfies shortfall sensitivity (the emphasis on the neglected dimension should be at least in proportion to the shortfall) and hiatus sensitivity to level (higher overall attainment must simultaneously lead to reduction in gap across dimensions). An acronym of these axioms is MANUSH, which incidentally means human in some of the South Asians languages and the alphabets can also be rearranged to denote HUMANS. Using Minkowski distance function we also give an a-class of measures, special cases of which turn out to be the old linear averaging method (a=1) and our proposed displaced ideal measure (a=2) and when ao2 then these class of measures also satisfy the MANUSH axioms.