How Atal Pension Yojana is helping Indians save for retirement
Government of India’s contributory pension scheme, Atal Pension Yojana, encourages citizens to save for retirement. This study finds that APY not only provides a basic pension, but also promotes bro...
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Debasis Rooj
Reshmi Sengupta
11 July, 2025
- Articles
The State within India’s corporate bond market
The value of gross issuances in India’s corporate bond market has grown by 150% over the past decade. In this post, Harsh Vardhan contends that while the market has become bigger, reforms are needed...
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Harsh Vardhan
12 June, 2025
- Perspectives
Finance for small-firm growth: Towards flexibility and innovation
While microfinance contract innovations like repayment grace periods help small-firm owners, they can increase default rates for microfinance institutions. Based on field experiments in Pakistan and K...
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Muhammad Meki
09 April, 2025
- Articles
Bubble in bitcoin or elsewhere?
The price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed. Gurbachan Singh contends that there may or may not be a bubble in cryptocurrencies. If there is a bubble, then the prices will fall eventually, and the story will...
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Gurbachan Singh
11 December, 2017
- Perspectives
Facilitating foreign investment in rupee-denominated debt
On 22 September 2017, the RBI notified that rupee-denominated offshore bonds – popularly known as ‘masala bonds’ – will no longer form part of the limit for investment in corporate bonds by fo...
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Radhika Pandey
Sanhita Sapatnekar
27 November, 2017
- Perspectives
What did demonetisation do to domestic agricultural markets?
When the note ban was announced a year ago, many feared that it would hit agriculture and informal sectors the hardest given the widespread use of cash for transacting in these sectors. Based on analy...
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Nidhi Aggarwal
Sudha Narayanan
10 November, 2017
- Articles
Recapitalisation of public sector banks, and financial repression
Government of India recently announced its decision to infuse Rs. 2.11 trillion of fresh capital into public sector banks, financed partly through recapitalisation bonds. In this article, Dr Gurbachan...
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Gurbachan Singh
06 November, 2017
- Perspectives
Should India hold US$400 billion of foreign exchange reserves?
RBI’s foreign exchange reserves have now crossed the US$400 billion mark. In this article, Dr Gurbachan Singh discusses why India’s Central Bank should not hold such large reserves.
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Gurbachan Singh
03 October, 2017
- Perspectives
Why are finances of Indian states deteriorating?
The combined stock of debt owed by Indian states is about 21% of GDP, and is proliferating. In this article, Ananya Kotia discusses why the stock of the states’ debt is unsustainable today despite ...
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Ananya Kotia
27 September, 2017
- Perspectives
Caste and credit: Not such a woeful tale?
Caste is an enduring predictor of economic status in India and caste-based discrimination continues to pervade several spheres of life. What about rural lending? This column suggests that most caste-w...
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Sunil Mitra Kumar
Ragupathy Venkatachalam
11 September, 2017
- Articles
Stock market participation in the aftermath of an accounting scandal
An emerging literature shows that exposure of fraud in the corporate sector leads to a fall in trust on part of households and decline in their stock market participation. Analysing data on daily inv...
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Renuka Sane
30 August, 2017
- Articles
Financial inclusion: Concepts, issues, and policies for India
The International Growth Centre recently brought out a synthesis paper (Singh 2017) that lays out the basic concepts surrounding financial inclusion, and reviews a wide range of IGC and other studies ...
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Nalini Gulati
Nirvikar Singh
17 August, 2017
- Perspectives
Post demonetisation: Is digital finance in India's future?
Analysing RBI data from June 2017 – six months after demonetisation was announced on 9 November 2016 – Mukherjee and Wadhwa show that reliance on cash has reverted to pre-demonetisation levels, an...
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Anit Mukherjee
Divyanshi Wadhwa
16 August, 2017
- Perspectives
Towards financial prescription
The Securities and Exchange Board of India has proposed that the distributors of mutual funds should only be allowed to sell financial products and not act as financial advisers for customers. Drawing...
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Gurbachan Singh
24 July, 2017
- Perspectives
Bank financing of stressed firms
There is anecdotal evidence that banks in India have been extending credit to highly distressed firms. By delaying recognition of bad loans, banks may improve their own profitability in the short run...
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Rajeswari Sengupta
Anjali Sharma
07 June, 2017
- Articles
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India’s insurance sector: Challenges and opportunities
While India’s insurance sector has been growing dynamically in recent years, its share in the global insurance market remains abysmally low. This article traces the journey of the Indian insurance s...
Kuntala Bandyopadhyay
Saon Ray
Vasundhara Thakur
31 August, 2020
- Articles
Financial inclusion in India: Progress and prospects
Financial inclusion is globally considered as a critical indicator of development and well-being of society. In this post, Srinivasa Rao traces the financial inclusion journey in India so far, and dis...
K. Srinivasa Rao
11 July, 2018
- Perspectives
RBI’s costly experiments with the currency
During 2023-2024, the average annual volatility of the rupee-dollar exchange rate was 1.8% – the lowest in over two decades. In this post, Patnaik, Pandey and Sengupta explain why sudden and sharp l...
Radhika Pandey
Ila Patnaik
Rajeswari Sengupta
21 February, 2025
- Perspectives