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.

Household food insecurity and children's dietary diversity and nutrition in India. Evidence from the comprehensive nutrition survey in Maharashtra.

Abstract: We analyse data from the 2012 Comprehensive Nutrition Survey in the State of Maharashtra, India, which surveyed 2,630 households. This is a unique dataset because in addition to nutritional status of mothers and children, it has information on diets of women and children and household food security. This rich dataset allows us to address three issues: whether household food security predicts higher diet diversity in children aged 6-23 months; whether household food security predicts lower risk of undernutrition; and whether the lower risk of undernutrition in children who live in food secure households is mediated by improved diet diversity for children. We find that children from moderately food insecure and severely food insecure households are more likely to have lower diet diversity scores. We find that the odds of a child being severely stunted, severely underweight, or severely wasted are higher in severely food insecure households. After controlling for children's diet diversity, and other child, maternal and household characteristics, we find that household food security is no longer statistically associated with stunting, wasting, or underweight. However, diet diversity of children is statistically significantly associated with whether a child is stunted or underweight. Our results although not causal provide evidence for understanding the extent to which household food insecurity affects children's diet diversity and how both these factors affect nutrition outcomes in children. Our analysis informs Government of Maharashtra's and India's National Nutrition Mission in their efforts for formulating appropriate policies and programmes to address child undernutrition.

Tax efficiency in selected Indian states

Abstract: This paper attempts to measure pure tax efficiency of fifteen major Indian states (Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Haryana, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamilnadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal) for the period 1980–81 to 1992–93 in a manner that allows this efficiency to vary both across time as well as across states. It is discovered that there is a moral hazard problem in the design of central grants in that higher grants by the central government to the state governments reduce efficiency of tax collection by these states. The less poor states are more efficient in tax collection. The rankings of states by tax efficiency for the various years do not converge. An index of aggregate tax efficiency is calculated and it appears that this index has been stagnating. It is argued that the weight placed on tax effort in the formula determining central grants to state governments should be increased to improve tax efficiency of state governments.

Ownership Concentration and Firm Value: A Study from Indian Corporate Sector

Abstract: The paper contributes to the understanding of corporate governance issues in emerging economies by examining the role of blockholders in influencing firm value. Using a much disaggregated and uniform database from Indian corporate sector for the year 2001, we present a deeper understanding of interaction between ownership structure and firm value in the following ways. Unlike most existing research which studies the aggregated level of ownership, we include a wider set of mechanisms, such as identity and ownership concentration of outside blockholders controlling at least 5% of total equity of the firm. We analyze the role played by these shareholders with substantial voting power in situations when equity holding is less vis-a-vis more concentrated in the hands of promoters. We also attempt to see if these investors coordinate among themselves to constrain the insiders from expropriating corporate resources. We find a significant curvilinear relationship between firm value and the fraction of voting rights owned by insiders. The curve slopes downward until the insider ownership reaches approximately between 45% and 63% and then slopes upward. Empirical results on ownership concentration by minority blockholders do not support the monitoring hypothesis of these investors. Furthermore, the coordinated behavior of largest two minority blockholders has value increasing (decreasing) impact on firm value when the collective control is located in the lower (higher) range. Coordination problem exacerbates if the largest two are private corporate bodies.