India Studies in Business and Economics – serie

This book presents an extensive study on the effectiveness of recent regulations on pharmaceutical prices in India, exploring the weaknesses in the design and implementation of pharmaceutical price controls and investigating what can be done to fix the broken system.In addition, it examines the extent to which essential medicines are actually made affordable by price controls. The book argues that companies make the pharmaceutical price control regime largely ineffective by coordinating to increase pre-regulation prices; by diversifying horizontally away from the regulated markets and increasing prices in the unregulated markets; by manipulating trade margins; and by refusing to comply with the regulation because the penalties remains negligible.The book draws on extensive empirical research involving India’s 2013 Drug Price Control Order and widely-used medicines such as paracetamol and metformin to illustrate how firms have weakened regulation. It argues that theregulatory regime can be strengthened by using systematic analysis of product- and region-level data in the Indian pharmaceutical industry, and by screening for the strategies that firms currently employ to circumvent regulation. In closing, it discusses recent efforts to strengthen the implementation of price controls in India and expanding the scope of price controls to medical devices.

This book focuses on the small car segment of India's automotive industry to explain the emergence of lead markets. Lead markets are considered crucial for the global diffusion of new products and this book investigates whether sustainable lead markets can also emerge in developing economies, and if so, under which conditions.

Whilst there is tremendous interest in understanding the intricacies of Indian culture and a growing literature focusing on topics such as India-specific management and internationalization strategies of Indian firms, the cultural aspects of Indian businesses have been largely ignored.

The Indian conglomerate Tata Group and the American healthcare giant GE Healthcare have also developed affordable products targeted at the lowest-income segments in India.

This book presents a comprehensive study of adoption and diffusion of technology in developing countries in a historical perspective. Combining the development of growth trajectories of the Indian economy in general and its manufacturing industry in particular, the book highlights the effective marriage between qualitative and quantitative methods for a better understanding and explaining of many hidden dynamic behaviors of adoption and diffusion trend in manufacturing industry. The use of various econometric methods is aimed to equip readers to make a judgement of the current state of diffusion pattern of new technologies in India and simulate a desirable future pattern in view of the various pro-industrial growth policies.

This book focuses on the small car segment of India's automotive industry to explain the emergence of lead markets. The authors contend that the current understanding of lead markets does not sufficiently explain the business practices that are born out of the intensified globalization of innovation. Lead markets are considered crucial for the global diffusion of new products and this book investigates whether sustainable lead markets can also emerge in developing economies, and if so, under which conditions. The authors question the conventional wisdom and propose updates and extensions to the lead market theory to better reflect the changing ground realities on ground.

Whilst there is tremendous interest in understanding the intricacies of Indian culture and a growing literature focusing on topics such as India-specific management and internationalization strategies of Indian firms, the cultural aspects of Indian businesses have been largely ignored.

The Indian conglomerate Tata Group and the American healthcare giant GE Healthcare have also developed affordable products targeted at the lowest-income segments in India.

India is still perceived by some as a developing country that has yet to create world-class products of its own. However, this book shows that in recent years India has emerged as a lead market for frugality-driven innovations that are affordable, robust and successful even outside its geographic boundaries. Many global companies have recognized these changes and are ramping up their local R&D capabilities. At the same time, several Indian firms are venturing out to international shores and gaining access to new markets. Using a top-down approach, the book takes a closer look at systems of innovation at work and presents examples of successful, corporate innovations in multiple industries and their contextual conditions.

This book presents a comprehensive study of adoption and diffusion of technology in developing countries in a historical perspective.

However, this book shows that in recent years India has emerged as a lead market for frugality-driven innovations that are affordable, robust and successful even outside its geographic boundaries.

This book presents an extensive study on the effectiveness of recent regulations on pharmaceutical prices in India, exploring the weaknesses in the design and implementation of pharmaceutical price controls and investigating what can be done to fix the broken system.In addition, it examines the extent to which essential medicines are actually made affordable by price controls. The book argues that companies make the pharmaceutical price control regime largely ineffective by coordinating to increase pre-regulation prices; by diversifying horizontally away from the regulated markets and increasing prices in the unregulated markets; by manipulating trade margins; and by refusing to comply with the regulation because the penalties remains negligible.The book draws on extensive empirical research involving India’s 2013 Drug Price Control Order and widely-used medicines such as paracetamol and metformin to illustrate how firms have weakened regulation. It argues that theregulatory regime can be strengthened by using systematic analysis of product- and region-level data in the Indian pharmaceutical industry, and by screening for the strategies that firms currently employ to circumvent regulation. In closing, it discusses recent efforts to strengthen the implementation of price controls in India and expanding the scope of price controls to medical devices.

Upon the backdrop of impressive progress made by the Indian economy during the last two decades after the large-scale economic reforms in the early 1990s, this book evaluates the performance of the economy on some income and non-income dimensions of development at the national, state and sectoral levels.

Financial management practices are likely to have a marked effect on the financial performance of a corporate enterprise. Therefore, sound financial decisions/practices can contribute towards meeting the desired objective of having profitable operations. This subject assumes paramount significance in view of the present dynamic and turbulent business environment, which has produced more intense competition and smaller profit margins across the world. In this context, the financial management practices of the corporates in India, a country with a vast potential for economic growth, can offer valuable insights.The present study explores whether there has been a major change in the financial performance (measured in terms of profitability) and financial policies/decisions of the sample companies over a fixed period (2000-2001 to 2010-2011), with a special focus on pre and post-recession analysis. It delves deeper into current research areas such as zero working capital, real options in capital budgeting, pecking order in capital structures, and clause 49 as reflected in the financial management decisions of sample companies, and provides a broader perspective by identifying trends (if any) in certain aspects of financial decision-making over the past two decades.A comprehensive study, covering all the major aspects of financial management practices, also contains an inter-sectoral study (among the sample companies) and develops an index of professionalism in financial management based on the practices of the sample companies. The book is primarily targeted at teachers/students of finance, management, commerce, accounting and related professional disciplines/fields. Practitioners/professionals will find it an invaluable text that helps guide them to better decision-making.

In the light of multiple corporate debacles, financial crises and environmental disasters across the globe, the need for corporate goals to transition from simply maximising shareholder wealth to optimising stakeholder welfare is being echoed in various quarters. This book makes a distinct contribution by looking at Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from a values-based perspective with a focus on providinga balance between corporate success and social well-being. The book emphasizes that corporations need to redefine their purposes to co-create long-term, sustainable and win–win solutions for multiple stakeholders through mutually-fulfilling and value-adding collaborative efforts. Through the ideal of ‘A Soulful Corporation’, the book proposes a new story where corporations, as associations of individuals, can identify their ‘collective spirits’ in terms of environmentally-aware, socially-inclusive and financially-rewarding missions. Some of the unique features of the book include:·         A detailed study of the evolution of CSR from the ancient to contemporary times·         Insights gained through empirical research and personal interviews with over 100 industry captains, CEOs, MDs and heads of the CSR function across companies and industries·         Case studies on CSR practices and processes in leading Indian companies including the Tata Group, TVS Motor, HUL, Wipro, L&T, Bharat Petroleum, HDFC Bank, Birla Group, Reliance Industries and others.·         Cases on unique social welfare projects in the areas of education, healthcare and drinking water supply·         A ‘Society and Local Community Welfare Framework’and a ‘12-point Agenda for Affirmative Action’ that propose policy recommendations and provide corporations with a roadmap for their CSR journey in the light of the mandatory CSR spending introduced by the Government of India.The book has relevance to multiple stakeholders: students, academics, CSR researchers, policy-makers, industry captains, business managers and entrepreneurs.

​ In India there is a high incidence of morbidity and malnutrition coupled with low standards of public health and expensive medical care. Despite several policy initiatives and many attempts to promote a healthy society, health remains an issue of concern. Policy-makers recognise that the country suffers unacceptably high levels of disease and premature death. A 2005 report from the National Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (NCMH) claims that private out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenditure often has a catastrophic effect on the consumption of basic goods and services for low-income households, forcing many below the poverty line and often blocking private intergenerational flows, severely affecting family members including the co-residing elderly, especially women. As poverty, malnutrition and enormous disparities are widespread, particularly in rural areas and urban slums, reliance on private health providers is fraught with serious economic consequences. Disease prevalenceamong these groups is particularly high. The market plays an increasingly important role in delivering health and diagnostic services. Infrastructural bottlenecks faced by central, state and local government health services force public health service users to access private medical care and incur very high out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses. All these issues are in direct contradiction to India’s National Population Policy (2000) and National Health Policy (2002).  This book highlights some of these neglected issues, and focuses largely on private expenditure on drugs and medicines for the treatment of ailments both with and without hospitalisation. It examines private OOP health expenditures in rural and urban households after breaking them down into the various healthcare service components including drugs and medicines (which constitute about 75 to 80 percent of OOP health expenditure), and assesses the extent of capital sample households borrow to finance medical expenditureand the effect on their basic food and non-food consumption requirements.

This book is the product of a study conducted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Ministry of Urban Housing and Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA). Its objective is to highlight some of the problems faced by street vendors in conducting their daily business and to examine how financial institutions, especially those in the banking sector, can include street vendors in their credit policies. Data was collected from 15 cities across the country. Not surprisingly, while issues such as public space utilisation have been deliberated upon at length, those concerning the nature of credit transactions and concurrently the financial inclusion of street vendors have scarcely received focussed attention. In the absence of formal credit, street vendors largely depend on loan sharks, who charge high interest rates ranging from 350% to 800% per annum.  The problem of formal credit aside, another equally important factoris the inflexible attitude of the civic authorities towards street vending. Given their informal status, this is particularly apparent because they are forced to conduct business in the absence of legal protection, making them vulnerable to rent seeking by the authorities. The acceptance of the National Policy for Urban Street Vendors by a few states and the subsequent bill to protect the livelihood of street vendors should help them gain legitimacy and subsequently credit to run their businesses at proper rates. The book examines and analyses these issues. ​

Business ethics is understood in a comprehensive and differentiated sense, as in recent years it has evolved under the influence of globalization. The present book examines inclusive growth, which includes more than just poverty alleviation and seeks to address the problem of equity through the enhancement of opportunities for all parties. This conforms to the fundamental task of business ethics, which is to enhance the ethical quality of decision-making and actions taken at all levels of business, i.e., at the personal (micro-), organizational (meso-), and systemic (macro-) levels and thus extending the narrow notion of business ethics as a niche for managers with good intentions. In the real world of competition and coordination, various situations produce various tradeoffs that the three pillars of the economy, i.e., Business, Government and Society have to pursue for their survival and sustenance. In this book, we look into many such case studies in which the strength of one component leads to a benefit for one of the other components and a detriment for the other, thus causing an imbalance between the three pillars. This book will be equally valuable to students, philosophers, decision-makers in business and policy-makers at large.

? The goal of this book is to assess the efficacy of India’s financial deregulation programme by analyzing the developments in cost efficiency and total factor productivity growth across different ownership types and size classes in the banking sector over the post-deregulation years.

?The proposed book provides an assessment of an important yet controversial policy initiated by the Indian government and governments of several other developing countries.

By deciphering the strategies used by efficient and sustainable MFIs and discussing the lessons that the crisis has imparted to the Indian microfinance markets, this book will enable Indian MFIs to march towards efficient and sustainable operations without losing focus on their clients.

This commemorative work in honour of Professor Biswajit Chatterjee-an acclaimed economist, learned scholar and researcher-focuses on contemporary issues in international trade, development economics, and macroeconomics and finance.

​ In India there is a high incidence of morbidity and malnutrition coupled with low standards of public health and expensive medical care. Despite several policy initiatives and many attempts to promote a healthy society, health remains an issue of concern. Policy-makers recognise that the country suffers unacceptably high levels of disease and premature death. A 2005 report from the National Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (NCMH) claims that private out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenditure often has a catastrophic effect on the consumption of basic goods and services for low-income households, forcing many below the poverty line and often blocking private intergenerational flows, severely affecting family members including the co-residing elderly, especially women. As poverty, malnutrition and enormous disparities are widespread, particularly in rural areas and urban slums, reliance on private health providers is fraught with serious economic consequences. Disease prevalenceamong these groups is particularly high. The market plays an increasingly important role in delivering health and diagnostic services. Infrastructural bottlenecks faced by central, state and local government health services force public health service users to access private medical care and incur very high out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses. All these issues are in direct contradiction to India’s National Population Policy (2000) and National Health Policy (2002).  This book highlights some of these neglected issues, and focuses largely on private expenditure on drugs and medicines for the treatment of ailments both with and without hospitalisation. It examines private OOP health expenditures in rural and urban households after breaking them down into the various healthcare service components including drugs and medicines (which constitute about 75 to 80 percent of OOP health expenditure), and assesses the extent of capital sample households borrow to finance medical expenditureand the effect on their basic food and non-food consumption requirements.

Upon the backdrop of impressive progress made by the Indian economy during the last two decades after the large-scale economic reforms in the early 1990s, this book evaluates the performance of the economy on some income and non-income dimensions of development at the national, state and sectoral levels.

Financial management practices are likely to have a marked effect on the financial performance of a corporate enterprise. Therefore, sound financial decisions/practices can contribute towards meeting the desired objective of having profitable operations. This subject assumes paramount significance in view of the present dynamic and turbulent business environment, which has produced more intense competition and smaller profit margins across the world. In this context, the financial management practices of the corporates in India, a country with a vast potential for economic growth, can offer valuable insights.The present study explores whether there has been a major change in the financial performance (measured in terms of profitability) and financial policies/decisions of the sample companies over a fixed period (2000-2001 to 2010-2011), with a special focus on pre and post-recession analysis. It delves deeper into current research areas such as zero working capital, real options in capital budgeting, pecking order in capital structures, and clause 49 as reflected in the financial management decisions of sample companies, and provides a broader perspective by identifying trends (if any) in certain aspects of financial decision-making over the past two decades.A comprehensive study, covering all the major aspects of financial management practices, also contains an inter-sectoral study (among the sample companies) and develops an index of professionalism in financial management based on the practices of the sample companies. The book is primarily targeted at teachers/students of finance, management, commerce, accounting and related professional disciplines/fields. Practitioners/professionals will find it an invaluable text that helps guide them to better decision-making.

This book is the product of a study conducted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Ministry of Urban Housing and Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA). Its objective is to highlight some of the problems faced by street vendors in conducting their daily business and to examine how financial institutions, especially those in the banking sector, can include street vendors in their credit policies. Data was collected from 15 cities across the country. Not surprisingly, while issues such as public space utilisation have been deliberated upon at length, those concerning the nature of credit transactions and concurrently the financial inclusion of street vendors have scarcely received focussed attention. In the absence of formal credit, street vendors largely depend on loan sharks, who charge high interest rates ranging from 350% to 800% per annum.  The problem of formal credit aside, another equally important factoris the inflexible attitude of the civic authorities towards street vending. Given their informal status, this is particularly apparent because they are forced to conduct business in the absence of legal protection, making them vulnerable to rent seeking by the authorities. The acceptance of the National Policy for Urban Street Vendors by a few states and the subsequent bill to protect the livelihood of street vendors should help them gain legitimacy and subsequently credit to run their businesses at proper rates. The book examines and analyses these issues. ​

This volume’s primary contribution to the field of Economics is that it addresses the issue of inter-linkages between money, finance and macroeconomics with a broad analytical perspective that has commonality with the Post-Keynesians. In an attempt to assess the consequences of economic reforms and the fallout of the global financial crisis on India and the world around, the book argues that with the onset of the crisis, as in most advanced economies, debates and discussions in India have been concerned with three main issues: monetary policy and asset prices, financial stability, and macro-prudential regulation. Three related issues which are also considered important in the Indian context are – rule vs. principle-based supervision, integrated financial supervision, and regulatory and supervisory independence. The book argues that the crisis highlighted the inadequacies of macro-prudential regulatory structure which mainly addresses idiosyncratic risks specific to individual financial institutions. The crisis precipitated an extensive debate on the role of national regulatory and supervisory authorities in crisis prevention and crisis management via macro-prudential regulations which involves a general equilibrium approach to regulation aiming at safeguarding the financial system as a whole. The book then argues that the crisis led to a paradigm shift in macroeconomic theory and policy. This shift has been categorized into four specific areas: monetary policy, financial regulation, corporate governance, and globalization. The book analyses how the characteristics of each of these four categories have changed from the pre-crisis to the post-crisis situation. The book also delves into the phenomenon of rising global commodity prices post-crisis. The book also deals with an analysis of the impact of this crisis on employment in the US economy, by simulating a macroeconomic model developed by the Cambridge Department of Applied Economics in the 1980s.

Issues linking climate change and economic growth are now at the centre of discussions regarding development strategies especially in the context of developing countries. This book contributes by analyzing the relationship between economic growth and GHG emissions in India with explicit reference to all major economic sectors. One of the most popular tools for macroeconomic policy analysis is Social Accounting Matrix (SAM). The book presents the methods and estimates of the latest Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for India, which provides a major data base describing the complete circular flow of income and input-output transactions among the sectors of the economy. The novelty of the book lies in the fact that for the first time a SAM has been prepared for the Indian economy with environmental indicators. A detailed methodology for constructing such an extended SAM is also presented in the book. The environmental social accounting matrix (ESAM) based analysis has been included to show direct and indirect links between economic growth and GHG emissions. The book also includes analysis of factors affecting historical GHG emissions trends in India. The book goes beyond SAM and applies computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling to derive climate-change policy analysis and simulations. This CGE-based analysis is an important contribution to the current debate surrounding carbon tax and its possible impact on macroeconomic growth.

The changes following more than two decades of economic reforms and globalization of the Indian economy – at state, corporate sector, and consumer level – raise interesting questions on the ways in which the stakeholders will continue to engage on the world stage, politically, socially and economically.  One key feature of global trade over this period has been the growing importance of not only product standards but, importantly, labor, environmental, food safety and social standards.  Being essentially a non-tariff barrier,standards have often become critical to market access and essential to sustained competitiveness. This has a clear impact on the manner in which both global and Indian business is conducted now and in the future.  It also underlines the need for a new area of enquiry that addresses the following questions:  How are the Indian public and private actors – the state, domestic firms, local consumers and society – influencing and being influenced by such standards? Do standards really matter in an overwhelmingly informal production sphere, with consumers deeply segmented on the basis of a highly skewed distribution of income and with the rural population becoming further marginalized? We have limited knowledge about the challenges faced and strategies pursued by these key domestic actors, both public and private.  How have they been able to drive these processes and what are their implications for larger concerns with inequalities and the conditions of the poor?  How does the omnipresent informality influence compliance, encourage multiple standards and affect the chances of addressing institutional dysfunctionality?  What role does regulation play?  These are some of the issues dealt with in the book, which has chapters focusing on aspects of specific sectors such as microfinance, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, tea trading, the role of the state and changing consumer influence.We have limited knowledge about the challenges faced andstrategies pursued by these key domestic actors, both public and private.  How have been they able to drive these processes and what are the consequences of these changes for the Indian economy, other emergent economies and for the rest of the developing world?  In particular, what are their implications for the wider Indian society, especially on concerns with informality, inequalities and the conditions of the poor?  How does informality in its omnipresent form influence compliance, encourage multiple standards and chances of addressing institutional dysfunctionality?  What role does regulation play?  These are some of the issues dealt within the book wherein chapters focus on aspects of specific sectors, trading, role of the state and changing influence of the consumer.