Marketing challenges of technical industries in developing countries

A rapidly changing technology-based industry such as electronics in the environment of a developing country has many unique problems in organizational marketing. The problems and possible strategies under such conditions are discussed in this article.     

The joint information role of analysts’ cash flow and earnings forecasts

We study whether the relative magnitudes of analysts’ cash flow and earnings forecasts convey information about the persistence and value relevance of reported earnings. We find that reported earnings are likely to be more (less) persistent and value relevant when analysts forecast relatively moderate (extreme) levels of operating cash flows, relative to earnings. We also find that the market’s response to a given earnings surprise is the strongest for moderate levels of cash flow forecasts relative to earnings. The joint information role of analysts’ cash flow and earnings forecasts persists even after controlling for the absolute accruals in the model.     

Estimating Sectoral Disinflation Cost in India: Some Structural VAR Evidence

This paper attempts a sectoral estimation of sacrifice ratios for India. Two Structural VAR models are estimated using quarterly data for the period 1997–98 Q1 to 2016–17 Q1. The empirical findings suggest that the real cost of disinflation policy is not negligible in India. The estimate of sacrifice ratios in terms of real GDP range from 0.16 to 0.17 depending upon the model employed. The calculation of sectoral sacrifice ratios show that all the three sectors are affected negatively and the largest impact is found in the manufacturing sector followed by the other two sectors, i.e., agriculture sector and service sector. The sacrifice ratio in the manufacturing sector is found to be 1.10 and 0.72 indicating huge negative impact of tight monetary policy. Similarly, for the agriculture sector the sacrifice ratios are 0.40 and the service sector shows sacrifice ratios of 0.36 and 0.37 respectively for different models. Further, from 10-year rolling estimation, we find that sacrifice ratios are time varying. The sacrifice ratio is declining in the last few quarters at the aggregate and sectoral levels indicating that disinflation could be less costly in recent times. However, the high disinflation cost experienced prior to the year 2015 can’t be neglected. So, it is important to take caution while interpreting the results of disinflation cost in India.

     

Omitted variables,variability of estimated parameters and the appearance of autocorrelated disturbances

This paper shows that in a standard regression model with omitted variables, the OLS formula for the estimated variance matrix of the regression coefficients is more likely to underestimate the appropriate criterion of estimator reliability which is the Mean Square Errors matrix. Using examples of two and three regressor models, we show that overestimation, though possible, occurs in rather special cases. Throughout, our analysis is contrasted with that of Chaudhuri (1977) and clarifies some ambiguities of that paper. Finally, we disagree with Chaudhuri who distinguishes between the corresponding coefficients in the correct and the misspecified models. This distinction is inappropriate and leads to a misplaced criticism of some GLS variants when errors are serially correlated. A first-order Markov process is an inexact representation of serial correlation which is due to omitted regressors.     

Monetary Policy and Financial Stability: The Role of Inflation Targeting

This article examines the relationship between Inflation targeting (IT) and financial instability from 1990 to 2015 for Asian economies. To measure financial instability, a multidimensional financial conditioning index is calculated following the ECB's approach. Using a fixed effects panel data model the study finds that adoption of IT policy in Asian economies has an adverse impact on financial stability, thus rejecting the ‘conventional wisdom’ hypothesis. Further, the Vector Autoregression (VAR) result shows that an IT regime increases housing returns and encourages investors to take higher risks.     

The impact of public ownership in the lending sector

We examine the effects of increased government ownership of suppliers in the lending sector, which induces increased concern with total welfare and reduced concern with profit. Such increased ownership of a lender can have unanticipated effects. For instance, it can increase lender profit. Furthermore, borrower welfare often declines as government ownership increases in a lender with a relatively limited ability to discern the true quality of borrowers’ projects. In addition, there are settings in which increased government ownership of a lender has no impact on either lender profit or borrower welfare.