18 May 2017: Minerals as a shared inheritance: Implications for public finance

Rahul Basu
Goa Foundation, Goenchi Mati Movement (GMM), and The Future We Need (TFWN)

Abstract:
Mining drives corruption, mis-governance, crony capitalism, environment & human rights damage and conflict. Iron ore mining in Goa has become contentious between civil society and the government. The Goenchi Mati Movement uses the Public Trust Doctrine and the Intergenerational Equity Principle to propose a ethical, fair & just resolution to the issue. The ramifications of the proposal are far reaching, including many aspects of public finance, capital markets and national income statistics.

Date: May 18, 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

28 April 2017: Corruption in the Supreme Court of India

Madhav S Aney
Singapore Management University

Abstract:
We investigate whether judicial decisions are affected by career concerns of judges by analysing two questions: Do judges respond to pandering incentives by ruling in favour of the government in the hope of receiving jobs after retiring from the Court? Does the government actually reward judges who ruled in its favour with prestigious jobs? To answer these questions we construct a dataset of all Supreme Court of India cases involving the government from 1999 till 2014, with an indicator for whether the decision was in its favour or not. We find that pandering incentives have a causal effect on judicial decision-making. The exposure of a judge to pandering incentives in a case is jointly determined by 1) whether the case is salient (exogenously determined by a system of random allocation of cases) and 2) whether the judge retires with enough time left in a governments term to be rewarded with a prestigious job (date of retirement is exogenously determined by law to be their 65th birthday). We find that pandering occurs through through the more active channel of writing favourable judgements rather than passively being on a bench that decides a case in favour of the government. Furthermore, we find that deciding in favour of the government is positively associated with both the likelihood and the speed with which judges are appointed to prestigious post-Supreme Court jobs. These findings suggest the presence of corruption in the form government influence over judicial decision-making that seriously undermines judicial independence.

Date: April 28, 2017
Time: 11:30 A.M.

Venue:
Class Room No. 14
Indian Statistical Institute Delhi Centre,
7, S. J. S. Sansanwal Marg,
New Delhi-110016 (INDIA)

Location:

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10 April 2017: Is Dollar Hegemony Inevitable? Possibilities for Reform in the Global Reserve System

Anush Kapadia
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Abstract:
The global reserve system is dominated by a single currency, the US dollar, in which the vast bulk of global trade and finance is conducted. This currency hegemony gives the world's only superpower the exorbitant privilege of having its own liabilities function as the global currency. Several scholars argue that the scale of this privilege help seed the financial crisis of 2007. Emerging markets poured their savings into dollar-denominated debt, creating a flood of cheap credit that lead to wild speculation and subsequent collapse. Since the crisis, several reform measures for this destabilising global reserve system have been suggested, with speculation on everything from a return to the gold standard, an elevation of the IMF's Special Drawing Right (SDR), and the rise of the Chinese Renminbi being discussed. This lecture offers a systemic account of how the global reserve system works in order to evaluate these claims. It argues that that global currencies will continue to be nationally based, hence reforms will have to focus on international institutions capable of disciplining the (existing and/or rising) hegemon rather than creating new synthetic currencies like the SDR.

Date: April 10, 2017
Time: 04:30 P.M.

Venue:
Conference Hall
Centre for Policy Research,
Dharma Marg, Chanakyapuri,
New Delhi–110021(INDIA)

Location:

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20 April 2017: Money & Medicine – the odd couple: An overview of the complexities of health system financing

Margaret Faux
Synapse Medical Services

Abstract:
With a hundred years of health systems behind us we know a great deal about what works and what doesn’t work in the health market. Countries such as India are perfectly positioned to benefit from this vast body of knowledge, but it’s complex! In this seminar we will consider key questions such as who should pay for health? Why is the health market unique and why are countries with very different health systems, facing the same challenges controlling health expenditure? What is universal healthcare and why is the USA the only developed country that has been unable to achieve it? We will look at important health system drivers including information asymmetry, the operation of the moral hazard, the social determinants of health, the codification of health services and the ways in which doctors around the world are paid. We will also compare and contrast some successful but very different health care systems, before concluding by considering the core legal infrastructure required for a health system to succeed.

Date: April 20, 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

3 April 2017: Prenatal sex selection and its future

Christophe Z Guilmoto
French Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), CEPED, Paris

Abstract:
This presentation contextualises India’s prenatal sex selection within a larger framework of countries with a history of similar processes. India's story with its skewed sex ratio at birth is well-known, even if its dynamics are still poorly understood. This presentation will briefly discuss the process of demographic masculinization from the 1980s, and examine the few demographic, social, and economic invariants found across countries affected by the rise in sex selective abortions. The present will focus on spatial patterns, one of the most distinct determinants of observed variations in sex ratio and conclude by considering how the known factors behind gender bias can help decipher the future of skewed sex ratios.

Date: April 3, 2017
Time: 11:30 A.M.

Venue:
Conference Hall
Centre for Policy Research,
Dharma Marg, Chanakyapuri,
New Delhi–110021(INDIA)

Location:

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