Regulatory independence and thermal power plant performance: evidence from India

Journal of Regulatory Economics - We examine the role of regulatory independence on electricity generation performance in India. Electricity generation in India is exposed to several regulatory...     

Almost saturatedD-optimal main effect plans and allied results

The theory of unimodular matrices has been applied to deriveD-optimal main effect plans fors ₁ ×s ₂ factorials ins ₁ +s ₂ runs. Plans with highA-efficiency have also been given.     

Are survey forecasts of individual and institutional investor sentiments rational?

We examine the effects of rational risk factors on investor sentiments. We find that institutional investor sentiments are more rational than individual investor sentiments. There are significant positive effects of, market return and dividend yield and negative effect of inflation on both types of sentiments. These risk factors have stronger effects on institutional than individual investor sentiments. Also, there are significant effects of term spread and HML on the institutional investor sentiments. The evidence suggests that linkages between sentiments and stock return stems from a combination of rational outlook and noise i.e. expectations that are not fully justified by information.     

Foreign competition for shares and the pricing of information asymmetry: Evidence from equity market liberalization

Using the equity market liberalization of 23 emerging market countries between 1996 and 2006, we examine how the degree of competition for a firm's shares affects the price of information asymmetry. We find evidence of a significant decline in the pricing of information asymmetry as countries remove regulatory restrictions on foreign ownership. Our study provides novel evidence on the link between the degree of competitiveness of equity markets and the price of information asymmetry. The work also furthers our understanding of the economic consequences of foreign stock ownership.     

Nutrient consumption in India: Evidence from a village study

Adequate nutrition is generally regarded as a core dimension in any evaluation of well‐being. In the context of India, a country with a high prevalence of poor nutrition, there is a dearth of nutrition studies with adequate coverage and comparability. Using primary data on food consumption from a village in a poorer state of India, we study the consumption of five key nutrients, namely, calories, protein, carbohydrates, calcium and iron. Among the various determinants of nutrition, we find that expenditure has a significant impact on nutrition and the expenditure elasticity of nutrition is comparatively high for all the key nutrients. By correcting for potential endogeneity, we demonstrate a causal link from expenditure and food subsidy provided by the public distribution system to nutritional intake. There is some evidence that household characteristics such as household size and gender of the household head matter for nutrition; however, they are not robust under various specifications.     

Patent citations as determinants of grant and opposition: case of European wind power industry

The grant of a patent and filing of an opposition are important events in the lifecycle of a patent. This paper tests the influence of backward citations on the likelihood of a patent grant and, if any, an opposition. Since all citations are not alike, detailed analysis is done by assessing type, nature and origin of citations in European search reports and, where needed, international search reports. The nature of citations, blocking or non-blocking, is found to have a significant impact on the likelihood of a patent being granted. The effect of citations originating during different stages of patent pendency is also explored in this study. For practitioners, the study provides a landscape of the European wind industry that is characterised by popularity of the PCT route, dearth of non-patent citations and dominance of bigger actors. For academics, the study offers novel opportunities to utilise citation based indicators.     

A covariate‐adjusted adaptive design for two‐stage clinical trials with survival data

A randomized two‐stage adaptive design is proposed and studied for allocation of patients to treatments and comparison in a phase III clinical trial with survival time as treatment responses. We consider the possibility of several covariates in the design and analysis. Several exact and limiting properties of the design and the follow‐up inference are studied, both numerically and theoretically. The applicability of the proposed methodology is illustrated by using some real data.