Thursday, August 31, 2017

8 September 2017: Whatever it takes: The Real Effects of Unconventional Monetary Policy

Viral Acharya
Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India.

Abstract:
Launched in Summer 2012, the European Central Bank (ECB)’s Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) program indirectly recapitalized European banks through its positive impact on periphery sovereign bonds. However, the stability re-established in the banking sector did not fully translate into economic growth. We document zombie lending by banks that remained undercapitalized even post-OMT. In turn, firms receiving loans used these funds not to undertake real economic activity such as employment and investment but to build up cash reserves. Creditworthy firms in industries with a high zombie firm prevalence suffered significantly from this credit misallocation, which further slowed down the economic recovery.

Date: September 8, 2017
Time: 06:00 P.M.

Venue:
Kamalnayan Bajaj Auditorium
Brookings India
No. 6, Second Floor,
Dr. Jose P. Rizal Marg,
Chanakyapuri,
New Delhi-110021

Location:


Note:
Please RSVP to dgupta@brookingsindia.org

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

6 September 2017: The impact of the GST on Indian investment

Gaurav S. Ghosh
Ernst & Young

Abstract:
The GST is the most far-reaching restructuring of the Indian tax regime since independence. Its impacts will ramify through all sectors of the Indian economy, from investment through production and consumption. We focus specifically on the impact of the GST on incentives to invest in India. To do this, we measure the tax cost of investment in the pre-GST and post-GST environments, and compare these costs across sectors and at the all-India level. Our metric for the tax cost of investment is the Marginal Effective Tax Rate (“METR”), a statistic measuring the tax wedge imposed upon a marginal investment, where the tax wedge is defined as the difference between the gross-of-tax return on capital and the net-of-tax return on capital for a marginal firm. The use of METRs to evaluate tax systems has a long history in many countries, but ours is its first implementation for the Indian economy. We find that the GST improves investment incentives by moderately reducing the tax burden. Further improvements can be made by streamlining the GST system, primarily by unblocking input tax credits in core sectors of the Indian economy. We also find that METRs vary significantly across Indian industries, and that the impact of the GST on investment incentives in these sectors is also heterogeneous.

Date: September 6, 2017
Time: 04:30 P.M.

Venue:
Conference Hall, Ground Floor
R&T Building
National Institute of Public Finance and Policy,
18/2 Satsang Vihar Marg, Special Institutional Area,
New Delhi-110067(INDIA)

Location:

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Note:
Those who are interested may please confirm your participation at bins.sebastian@nipfp.org.in

1 September 2017: The Cost of Distance: Geography and Governance in Rural India

Karan Nagpal
University of Oxford

Abstract:
Rural economic outcomes deteriorate with distance from cities and towns. We use a spatial regression discontinuity design to provide causal evidence for one channel through which this effect operates: the geography of public administration. Using a rich spatial dataset on Indian villages and their local administrative capitals, we show that a greater distance from capitals reduces the provision of public goods. More distant villages also have lower literacy rates and reduced participation in non-farm activities. To estimate these effects causally, we exploit administrative boundaries that generate sharp jumps in distance to local administration capitals, but not in conventional measures of market access such as distance to towns and highways and population density. We discuss a number of mechanisms that explain these results, including monitoring and provision costs, information asymmetries and citizen voice.

Date: September 1, 2017
Time: 04:30 P.M.

Venue:
Conference Hall, Ground Floor
R&T Building
National Institute of Public Finance and Policy,
18/2 Satsang Vihar Marg, Special Institutional Area,
New Delhi-110067(INDIA)

Location:

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Note:
Those who are interested may please confirm your participation at bins.sebastian@nipfp.org.in

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

11 August 2017: Immigration and its Discontents: International Migration after Brexit, Brussels, and Trump

Neeraj Kaushal
Columbia University

Abstract:
Immigration has become a hot button issue. From Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, and Germany to Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, it is churning electoral politics. A hundred years ago, similar discontents resulted in severe restrictions on immigration. Will history repeat itself? Neeraj Kaushal will discuss the primary drivers these discontents, whether and how these discontents are related to immigration, and how they would shape the future of international migration.

Organised by:
Brookings India

Date: August 11, 2017
Time: 03:00 P.M.

Venue:
Kamalnayan Bajaj Auditorium
Brookings India
No. 6, Second Floor,
Dr. Jose P. Rizal Marg,
Chanakyapuri,
New Delhi-110021

Location:


Note:
Please RSVP to sgupta@brookingsindia.org