
Money and Finance

Have policy initiatives in emerging Asian economies improved firms' access to external finance?
Since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, policymakers in Asia have initiated a series of reforms aimed at developing and strengthening the regional financial markets. This column provides new evidence on the response of corporate financial choices to the introduction of these policy initiatives, in terms of external finance access and investment.

Do exchange listings help ease financial constraints of SMEs?
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are viewed as an engine of economic growth and source of job creation. In an attempt to ease their financial constraints, India and some other countries, have experimented with enabling SMEs to access public markets by listing their shares on exchanges with less stringent criteria. This column analyses the impact of listing on the fortunes of SMEs in India.

A vision and action plan for financial sector development and reforms in India
In this article, Agarwal and Prasad present a summary of their new Brookings India report, which takes stock of financial sector development in India, identifies areas of improvement, outlines long-term objectives for financial sector development and reforms, and provides policy recommendations to achieve the long-term objectives.

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 end there. If, however, there is no bubble in cryptocurrencies, then there can be interesting implications for other important assets.

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 foreign portfolio investors. In this article, Radhika Pandey contends that while this is a step in the right direction, more needs to be done to complete the reform to simplify and rationalise the current regulatory framework.

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 analysis of data from 2,953 mandis across India for 35 major agricultural commodities for the period 2011-2017, this column finds that there are lingering impacts of demonetisation on farmers and adverse distributional consequences overall.

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 Singh discusses how by opting for normal government bonds instead, issues of financial instability and financial repression could have been avoided. 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 Singh discusses how by opting for normal government bonds instead, issues of financial instability and financial repression could have been avoided.

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 their commendable adherence to hard limits on borrowing flows imposed by India’s fiscal rule framework.
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