Madan Sabnavis
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Banking reforms: Why BOB, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank merger will have a little effect
When the policy is to retain the headcount, accommodating them in a smaller set of branches will not be possible.
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External factors: Import curbs to stabilise rupee may not work
Export incentives are not likely to increase exports as they have tended to depend on demand conditions in importing countries and not the price.
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A decade after Lehman Brothers
The dominance of the Big 3 ratings agencies and the Big 5 investment banks continues
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There’s need to allow futures trading for fuel and pulses; here’s why
There is very little scope for rigging spot prices for both commodities and such a step will lead to efficient price-discovery.
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Gauging the industrial environment is not easy
Is there a leading indicator for industrial growth? Not really. A part of the reason is that industry has been subject to significant disruptions like policy upheaval, stalled projects, volatile consumer demand, global influences, demonetisation, GST, etc, which have made the index numbers extremely volatile.
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The money trilogy: Everything about money and finance explained in a set of three books
The author has put in a lot of work to get this project right. It is based on wholesome research of many events, which makes it a good academic collection.
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Challenges before India’s growth story
Manufacturing’s contribution to GDP needs to get improve, and capital formation in the economy and the savings situation must get better.
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Draft e-commerce Bill gets it wrong
The e-commerce model serves the same function as the current efforts to bring farmers closer to the consumers by linking them digitally. Also, e-tail discounts bring down prices for consumers.
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How Democracy Ends: A hard-hitting book explains why leaders like Trump may not mean the end of democracy
In this rather engaging discourse, Runciman showcases how democracies ended in the earlier days, which is quite different from what happens today.
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Whose wealth is it anyway, has inequality increased in India?
Both ownership of gross fixed assets created and share in market value of companies point to a lower share of wealth transferred to the ‘people’ as against family-owned or private business.
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New bond market framework: A big push for corporate borrowings
While SEBI has done its bit, it is necessary to get in more investors and this is where other regulators need to build their framework. A one-year tenure bond would appeal to mutual funds, but probably not insurance companies or provident funds. There also has to be more paper and derivatives working in consonance for this market to develop in the desired manner.
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Book Review: Linda Yueh’s The Great Economists explains the key thoughts of history’s greatest economists
If you want to return to your economics classroom to get a refresher on macro-economic theory or want to know what all these theories are about, you should pick up Linda Yueh’s book The Great Economists.
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Let’s not overstate the case of MSP
MSP is an indicative price that works when the government steps in to buy the product. It does not necessarily lead to farmers being better off all the time, as the final price is still driven by the market.
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Conspiracy: A thrilling story of a PayPal founder
The storyline is simple and could have been from the pen of Jeffrey Archer. Gawker used to make a profit by bringing out scandals about any celebrity—that’s why advertisers liked it because it got viewership and, hence, was value for money.
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GST may have had an inflationary push
A year after GST, The core CPI index increased by around 200 bps; the fact that all the non-food components rose indicates that there was an upward bias.
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It’s hard being a banker: The Indian banking system is probably the most pressurised system
The Indian banking system—especially with regards to the public sector banks—is probably the most pressurised system where politics and commerce score over economics.
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States’ Fiscal Care: Ratings route to make states fiscally disciplined
RBI incentivising banks to invest in rated sdls should prod states to get their bonds rated; the more fiscally disciplined the state, the better the rating.
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Selling a story: An engaging narrative makes all the difference in this book on sales
Sales is probably the most important function of any business, because it is the front end of the company and generates revenue, which is the raison d’être of any commercial activity.
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Sowing Problems: Don’t saddle private sector with the MSP burden
MSP is a flawed policy and make sense only in case there is a backward link via government procurement as is the case with rice and wheat that are key to PDS and buffer stock operations.
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Book Review: A book argues that the world has become a better place than we think – Factfulness by Hans Rosling
The most recent news item relating to electrification in the country highlighted the fact that all the villages in the country are now electrified. It was added that the challenge henceforth is to ensure that all households get access to power. How would the reader react to this statement?
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Out of the frying pan and into the fire?
Apart from what a contracting loan-book will mean for a PCA bank’s NPA ratio, narrow-banking will mean such banks earn less.from their funds.
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Is Marx still relevant?
The latest protagonist of critique of capitalism, Thomas Piketty, has highlighted the growth of inequality, which is a speaking point today in all the seminars with the acceptance that capitalism has ended up being self-serving (as would be applauded positively by Adam Smith, who believed in self-interest).
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Book review: Here’s a book that talks about the famous band Beatles’ time in India
The group visited India at a time of no Internet and very few news sources as compared to today.
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Liberalisation: Is India afraid of market forces?
There is a tendency in the country to regulate prices with different interest groups in Mind. Interest Rates and Forex matters are also not left to the market.
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Rethinking investment provisioning: Banking on a loan vulnerability reserve
The loan vulnerability reserve can be created for special mention accounts, with differing norms for different grades of such accounts
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Book Review: Information overload
The sheer amount of data today is changing decision-making, thus changing the rules of capitalism
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Book Review: Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ‘Skin in the Game’ is all praises for US President Donald Trump
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is all praise for US President Donald Trump because he has made idiotic mistakes and lost money as an entrepreneur, and hence can be trusted because he has his skin in the game.
