A framework for monetary stability
Indian economists and policy-makers are not much aware of the importance of expectations to economic decision making and to the outcome of particular policy actions. Although the rationality of expectations in all markets is still controversial most economists now accept the following principle suggested by the nobel laureate Robert Lucas: expectation formation will change when the behaviour of forecasted variables (such as monetary aggregates and its key components as also the magnitude of fiscal deficits) changes.
Who needs the IMF?
US president Bill Clinton and the International Monetary Fund have shifted into overdrive in their effort to save the economies of Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand-or, to be more accurate, to save the pocketbooks of international investors who could face a tide of defaults if these markets are not now shored sup.
Human resource in public sector
India is celebrating 50th anniversary of its independence. It was after the independence, the great visionary and first prime minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru took keen interest in developing public sector enterprises on a large scale. Ours is a socialist republic and the public sector enterprises are promoted as the agencies of the government in fulfiling the social objectives.
Sooner the better
Hindustan Lever has joined the list of companies accounting for tax on deferred basis. To be sure, the first listed company to adopt deferred tax accounting was ICICI. However, the point is that it is not mandatory and companies have not been known to adopting accounting practices which are not mandatory. How many MNCs, for example, publish quarterly results in India?
A matter of prices
The annual rate of inflation, as measured by the wholesale price index, has accelerated after December to touch 5.8 per cent. With two more months to go, inflation may touch 7 per cent this fiscal. Although it will be more than 6 per cent (targeted by the Reserve Bank a few months ago), this is hardly cause for worry. In 1996-97, year on year inflation was 6.9 per cent, well above the recession-depressed 5 per cent of the the previous year.
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