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3851 items in total found

Working Papers | 2026

Trade-Dress Law in India

M P Ram Mohan, Pratishtha Agarwal

The increased emphasis on visual presentation and brand experience has elevated trade-dress from a peripheral concern to a central feature of trademark protection. Indian trade-dress protection is currently spread across multiple intellectual property legal regime with special emphasis through the passing-off law under the trademarks Act 1999. Despite commercial importance of trade-dress law, and without explicit statutory definition of what constitutes trade-dress, its protection is shaped almost entirely through a patchwork of judicial interpretation across the Supreme Court and the High Courts. The present study undertakes a mapping and comparative analysis of trade-dress jurisprudence across the Supreme Court of India and four major High Courts; Delhi, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The analysis reveals a fragmented landscape highlighting divergent judicial approaches to distinctiveness, consumer perception, functionality and evidentiary thresholds, The present study further identifies persistent doctrinal tensions from the conflation of trade-dress with copyright and design law in the Indian context. The authors argue for a more disciplined and coherent framework for trade-dress protection in India.

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Working Papers | 2026

Credit Reallocation and Exporting: Evaluating the IBC Reforms in India

Padmabati Nayak

This paper studies whether strengthening creditor rights improves the allocation of capital toward productive exporting firms. I examine India’s Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) of 2016, which introduced a time-bound insolvency resolution framework and strengthened creditor control. Using firm-level data from CMIE Prowess and a difference-in-differences design, I test whether the reform relaxed financing constraints for firms with high marginal returns to capital (MRPK). I find that following the IBC, high-MRPK exporting firms experience a significant increase in export intensity, investment, and long-term domestic borrowing relative to other firms. In contrast, foreign borrowing remains unchanged, suggesting that the reform primarily improved access to domestic credit markets. The findings imply that

stronger insolvency institutions can improve allocative efficiency by channeling capital toward productive but financially constrained firms. More broadly, the paper highlights the  role of creditor rights in shaping export performance and resource allocation in emerging economies.

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Working Papers | 2026

Creditor Rights, State-Owned Banks, and Investment Efficiency: Evidence from SARFAESI Act

Vishal Vaibhav

I examine whether firms borrowing exclusively from government-owned banks respond differently to SARFAESI Act and how it affects the investment efficiency. I find that firms borrowing exclusively from government-owned banks experience a significant increase in investment inefficiency following the reform. I also find the increase in inefficiency is concentrated among firms with high levels of tangible assets, suggesting that collateral enforcement is the primary mechanism driving the results.

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Journal Articles | 2026

Preventing Defaults in Response to Deteriorating Bank Health: The Prompt Corrective Action Approach

Nishant Kashyap, Sriniwas Mahapatro, Prasanna Tantri

Prior research shows that borrowers are more likely to default when their banks are financially distressed, particularly where contract enforcement is weak. We examine whether regulatory intervention in the form of Prompt Corrective Action (PCA), which seeks to improve bank health through enhanced monitoring, reverses such defaults. To address this question, we exploit the bright-line entry thresholds in India's PCA regime using a regression discontinuity framework. We first show that such defaults exist in India. Our main result is that PCA intervention significantly reduces such defaults. The result is robust to variation in methodology and alternative definitions of bank health. Our evidence suggests that PCA reduces such defaults by credibly signaling to borrowers the likely restoration of bank health and continuity of lending relationships. Its effectiveness was reinforced by an earlier regulatory reform that improved the timeliness of loan-loss provisioning, enhancing the credibility of enforcement. Overall, our findings suggest that PCA, when underpinned by credible financial reporting, can serve as an effective policy tool to curb strategic defaults.

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Journal Articles | 2026

All That Glitters Is Not Code? Understanding the Predictors of Developer Popularity and Sponsorship on a Social Coding Platform

Praharshita Krishna, Adrija Majumdar, and Indranil Bose

A developer's popularity plays a crucial role in their success within open source software (OSS) communities and their access to sponsorship opportunities. This study seeks to answer the question: which signals have the most predictive power for popularity and sponsorship volume on social coding platforms? Using algorithm-supported abductive theory generation supplemented by qualitative insights from observations and interviews, we arrive at a theory of peer evaluation in OSS communities. We examine a large number of signals and categorize them. The two categories are signaling via self-disclosure through profile signals and signaling via contribution quantity and quality through behavioral signals. The large amount of data available to us allows us to use machine learning techniques to arrive at top-ranking predictors within each category. We generate our theory by finding robust patterns and test our theory using a hold-out sample. Our findings indicate that easily observable credibility-enhancing and approachability-related developer profile signals hold greater predictive importance in shaping popularity. However, harder to observe and more complex behavioral signals show greater predictive importance for sponsorship volume. These results signify that OSS social coding platforms are not meritocratic, as developer self-disclosure significantly influences popularity. In contrast, sponsorship decisions, due to their high cost and irreversibility, depend on within-platform contribution-related signals. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of popularity and sponsorship within peer-to-peer followership networks in OSS communities. Through our research, platforms are better informed about the predictors of popularity and sponsorship and can introduce measures to enhance the meritocratic nature of these communities. Developers who seek influence and sponsorship on the platform can be more strategic about information disclosure and their contributions.

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Journal Articles | 2025

Investor networks and fund performance in private equity real estate funds

"Bobby Yu, Peng Liu, Prashant Das"

Is the formation of investor networks associated with superior fund performance? Our analysis of more than 2,000 private equity real estate (PERE) funds over three decades reveals abnormal performance among PERE funds dominated by institutional investor cliques. Specifically, investor cliques with a more extensive history of joint investment are associated with superior fund performance that is not explained by common fund characteristics. Such correlation is not predicted by a simple Bayesian update without access to private information, implying that investor networks may be a channel through which limited partners identify and access better-performing fund managers. We also provide evidence that Limited Partner (LP) networks are not a mere result of rational herding by showing that the clique-level Herfindahl–Hirschman Index for investor AUM does not positively predict greater abnormal return. We further observe that investor cliques prolong the time needed to reach maximal commitment. As General Partners (GP) are known to utilize a subscription line of credit to borrow against committed capital to boost return, we infer more financing discretion granted to GPs by cliques.

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Journal Articles | 2025

Picking the best bot: Collaboration strategies for humans and bots in order pick systems with traveling salesman problem routing

"Mahdi Ghorashi Khalilabadi, Debjit Roy, René de Koster"

The rapid growth of e-commerce has increased the demand for efficient order picking systems in large warehouses. To improve throughput performance, many facilities deploy autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) to assist human pickers. Warehouse throughput critically depends on the choice of human-robot collaboration policy. This study focuses on two popular policies: the swarm policy, in which pickers switch between AMRs while picking, and the system-directed policy, in which a picker completes an order with a single AMR. An analytical framework is developed to evaluate these policies. We model the swarm policy as a closed queuing network with a synchronization station, and we derive closed-form expressions for its steady-state probabilities and throughput given load-dependent service rates. The service rates of the network nodes are estimated by Monte Carlo simulation, accounting for stochastic travel times, varying order sizes, item allocation strategies, matching rules, and warehouse layouts. The analytical predictions are validated against detailed discrete-event simulations, with average relative errors below 2% in 12,000 instances. The results indicate that the swarm policy generally provides higher throughput than the system-directed policy, with gains increasing in the AMR-to-picker count and speed ratios. The system-directed policy is more effective when AMR and picker speeds are similar, the orders are large, and there is a limited number of AMRs. Managerial insights are provided to guide policy choice.

Funding: This research is part of the Sharehouse Project, which was cofinanced and supported by the Dutch Research Council NWO, the Dutch Ministry of I&W, the Taskforce for Applied Research SIA, the Dutch Topsector Logistics, and TKI Dinalog [Project 439.18.452].

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Journal Articles | 2025

Consumption and borrowing: Land-holding inequality and the effects of cash transfers

"Abhishek Shaw, Sawan Rathi, Anindya S. Chakrabarti"

A rich literature shows that in developed countries, cash windfalls increase consumption and are often used to pay off debt. Does inequality influence how cash transfers affect consumption and borrowing, in developing countries? In this paper, we study an unconditional cash transfer program for agricultural landowners in India in a quasi-natural experiment set up. In aggregate, cash transfers led to an increase in consumption alongside increase in borrowings on the extensive margin. Farmers with large land holdings increased only bank borrowings, whereas small and marginal farmers increased both consumption and borrowing from banks – with heterogeneous effects across quartiles. There are no effects on landless agricultural laborers. These effects appear after cash disbursement and not when the announcement was made. Our results suggest that as landholding size increases, households tend to respond more through formal borrowing than consumption.

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Working Papers | 2025

Non-Disclosure Agreements and Confidentiality Clauses

M P Ram Mohan, Siddhartha Shukla, Julie Farley and Prem Vinod Parwani

This note aims to provide an overview of Non-Disclosure Agreements and Confidentiality clauses contrasting Indian law with key issues under English law. It examines the doctrinal framework protecting confidential information, which is a “patchwork of remedies” derived from contract law, intellectual property law, and common law. It defines and distinguishes the different forms of obligations to protect confidential information, outlines the remedies for breach and sets out some practical drafting considerations that are peculiar to the considerations of business parties in NDAs.

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Journal Articles | 2025

Mental health consumption: Tracing the past and preparing for the future in a digital age

"Rajeev Kumar Ray, Ishita Vyas, Rajesh Chandwani, Mayank Kumar"

In an era where digital platforms are reshaping healthcare delivery, we have also seen the rise of online platforms for mental health consumption. While the literature on consumer behaviour in an online context is rich, mental health consumption presents a unique context requiring attention to personal health-related dynamics alongside the larger aspect of online consumption. This motivates the current study to conduct a multi-method study for understanding the phenomenon of online mental health consumption. We combine a systematic review of 105 articles (2014–2024) with topic modelling of 168,040 user reviews from mental health applications. We theorise how the logic of choice and care are at work in online mental health consumption. Our findings reveal a complex and dynamic interplay of ‘choice’-related enablers and ‘care’-related inhibitors, shaping online mental health consumption behaviour. While online platforms offer ‘choice’ for consuming mental health services by overcoming traditional barriers related to stigma and accessibility, their uptake at the same time is challenged by the emerging care-related factors such as trust and privacy concerns. An analysis of user reviews further reveals that consumer experiences focus on the service delivery quality, personalised user interfaces and technical platform reliability, which collectively demonstrate how users navigate between autonomous choice making and professional care expectations. This apparent tension between the ‘logics’ in mental health consumption online also informs the larger online consumption behaviour literature about attending to the constantly evolving, often competing logic in online platforms.

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