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Working Papers | 2012

Organized Retailing of Horticultural Commodities

Piyush Kumar Sinha and Sujo Thomas

Owing to rapid urbanization and changing consumption patterns, more and more retailers are trying to put their best efforts to discover new avenues of success when it comes to the sales of horticultural commodities. There are several Indian companies as well as foreign companies who have been focusing all their energies to succeed in the organized retail sector of Indian horticulture commodities. The Indian retail industry is worth $470 million and organized retail stands at $26 million which is around 6% of the market. The overall organized retail market in India is projected to grow at a CAGR of 40%, touching US$ 107 billion by 2013. Especially horticulture retail, which is mostly referred as the selling of fresh fruits and vegetables, is witnessing a slow but steady change. The main objective of this paper is to gain insight into organized retail of Horticulture commodities from the Indian perspective. This paper attempts to explore and evaluate the extent of the transformation and its impact brought by the organized retailing of Horticultural commodities in India. The first section of this paper discusses the nature of organized retailing in India alongside the progress and experience of organized retailing of Horticulture commodities. The second section of this paper enumerates the issues and concerns in the Horticulture sector of India and subsequently this paper examines the effects of FDI in Horticulture retail while quoting some evidences from other countries. This study has analyzed and evaluated the organized retailing sector in Horticulture commodities and put forward specific recommendations for the development and transformation of this sector.

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Working Papers | 2012

Realigning Business Strategy for PWD (People with Disabilities)
Customers: A Less-explored Territory in Diversity Inclusion

Abhishek and Richa Saxena

A disability refers to a physical, sensory or mental limitation that interferes with a persons ability to move, see, hear or learn. Business initiatives taken up by organizations for diversity inclusion of people with disabilities (PWD) are generally focused only on providing employment or giving contracts to suppliers who employ PWD. Through this paper, we propose that commercial organizations need to look at the third set of stakeholders i.e. customers and need to realign their business strategy so that they also cater to a diverse population including the PWD customers. This paper looks into different aspects like rationale, hindrances, facilitators, and concerns for commercial organizations to align business strategy for PWD customers. It is expected that it will not only empower PWD to conduct themselves with dignity but will also enable commercial organizations to tap into larger market.

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Working Papers | 2012

Does Competition in the Microfinance Industry Necessarily Mean Over-borrowing?

Ratul Lahkar, Viswanath Pingali, and Santadarshan Sadhu

In this paper we test the hypothesis of whether the presence of increasing number of microfinance institutions leads to over-borrowing. Some recent theoretical literature suggests that, in a joint liability setting, borrowers are more likely to borrow from multiple sources-without increasing their loan size-in order to better manage their risk due to partner default. Here, we test this hypothesis by utilizing a unique primary dataset generated through comprehensive surveys conducted in eight districts of Andhra Pradesh. Results suggest that over-borrowing and multiple loans are not necessarily synonymous. More broadly, as the number of credit agencies in a village increases, the average loan burden of villagers need not increase. Furthermore, there is an evidence of substitution from informal sources of credit to formal ones. Such substitution is greater with addition of microfinance institutions than with the addition of other formal lending agencies. Finally, we also find that the joint liability setup ensures that individuals at a greater risk of non-repayment are discouraged from obtaining MFI loans.

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Working Papers | 2012

Whether Cross-Listing, Stock-specific and Market-wide Calendar Events impact Intraday Volatility Dynamics? Evidence from the Indian Stock Market using High-frequency Data

Sobhesh Kumar Agarwalla and Ajay Pandey

Using high-frequency stock price data, we investigate the effect of various stock-specific and market-wide events on intraday volatility dynamics in the Indian market. Modeling intraday volatility dynamics using FFF regressions, we examine the effect of-(a) cross-listing, (b) weekends and holidays, (c) scheduled temporary trading halts, and (d) derivatives' expiry day, on intraday volatility dynamics. We find that Indian stock market exhibits "reverse J" shaped intraday volatility with much higher intraday variation than what has been reported in other markets. The intraday variation is more in the case of large cap stocks relative to small cap stocks. Higher volatility is also observed in the first one-hour of trade after weekends, in the first half-an-hour after the holidays, in the last one-hour of trade before the weekends. Temporary scheduled trading halts cause the volatility to rise when the market re-opens. The stocks, cross-listed elsewhere, exhibit higher volatility in the first 45 minutes of trade relative to other stocks. Volatility of the stocks with derivative contracts increases in the last half-an-hour trade on the expiry day, the time period relevant for estimation of the settlement price of the derivative contracts, but not in other time intervals. While our results are mostly along the lines of previous findings, the use of high-frequency data allows us to locate precisely the time-intervals which are affected by the investigated calendar events.

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Working Papers | 2012

Economic Growth in Gujarat in Relation to the Nation
and Other States in Recent Times - A Statistical Analysis

Sebastian Morris

Growth rates of regions (states) have generally followed the national level growth rates over time with small lags or leads. We find much coherence between the aggregate performance of regions over time and that of the nation, so that the periodization at the national level is also useful at the regional level. Growth of regions since the reform of 1991-93 can be considered in two phases 1992-94 to 2002-03 and 2003-04 onwards. The very growth achieved in the latter period is mirrored at the regional level with particularly the services sector growth rate moving upwards in the second period. Gujarat like many other states is no exception. But its large competitive advantage in manufacturing means that the growth achieved in the manufacturing sector may have been less than what was possible given the monetary and exchange rate conservatism of the Reserve Bank of India. Both Maharashtra and Gujarat in the period since 2003-04 show strong positive residual (regional) factors explaining their high growth performance in this period. The contrast is with Tamil Nadu and West Bengal in the very same period.

What is remarkable though of Gujarat is that it has been able to maintain and enhance its comparative advantage despite a high level of per capita income. Gujarat shows better performance on both agriculture and electricity but especially the latter which therefore inter alia has influenced local industrialization. But the roles of the factors considered must not be exaggerated. Coherence of national level growth with regional being high, the focus in discussions of the performance of states and state governments should shift to income distribution, performance of public services, locally provided infrastructure, social services over which state governments have far better and possibly even overriding control.

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Working Papers | 2012

Organizational Transformation in India: Developing a Typology

Supriya Sharma

Organizational transformation, which is frequently credited with turning around the fortunes of many organizations, has remained an underrated concept in India. This paper is an attempt to study the transformations that have taken place in organizations operating in India, and thus classify them to develop a broad typology, which is relevant for India. This typology has been developed by first identifying the three key components of any transformation-Object, Magnitude and Speed-and building a conceptual framework to understand each episode of transformation better. Analysis reveals nine types of transformations, which capture different aspects of each of the key components of transformation process.

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Working Papers | 2012

Impact of the Introduction of Call Auction on price discovery: Evidence from the Indian Stock Market Using High-Frequency Data

Sobhesh Kumar Agarwalla, Joshy Jacob, and Ajay Pandey

Call markets are claimed to aggregate information and facilitate price discovery where continuous markets may fail. Its advantage, however, comes at the cost of immediacy. Possibly due to faulty design or due to "thick market externalities", the impact of the introduction of call has not been found uniformly beneficial. This paper examines the recent re-introduction of opening call auction at the National Stock Exchange of India. This was advocated based on the supportive evidence of the positive effect of call auction at the time of high market volatility or information asymmetry. The results suggest that the intraday pattern of volume and volatility in the continuous market remains unchanged even after the introduction of call market. The volatility and volume still takes about 30 minutes to stabilize and the auction attracts very little volume. The negative intraday return correlations suggest excessive price movement at the call auction. However, the synchronicity of price discovery, on the lines of Pagano and Schwartz (2003), indicates some improvement in the market quality. Possibly, the no all-round improvement of price discovery could be attributed to the extremely short duration of the auction. The paper contributes to the understanding of the impact of opening call auction on market quality.

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Working Papers | 2012

Corporate Governance: Confidentiality and Role of Media in Changing Times

Anurag K. Agarwal

There is a certain tension between the primary objective of the media to tell as much as possible to the public and the objective of the companies to retain confidentiality. In this tussle, legal and ethical issues are raised, particularly in the recent times when technology is changing at a rapid pace and also with stakes involved becoming higher and higher. With a written Constitution in India guaranteeing freedom of speech and expression to its citizens, including the media, it is a real test for the judiciary to achieve the right balance. Journalists are often protected by law not to disclose the identity of the confidential source, and this right-reporter's privilege-at times seriously hinders the course of law. The paper examines these issues and discusses a couple of such cases. Further, it studies the role of media in India in the fast changing scenario, particularly in the light of the recent Supreme Court judgement-in Sahara v. SEBI case (September 11, 2012)-mandating self-regulation. The paper concludes that legal tools alone cannot bring the desired change and concerted effort needs to be made by the media, government and businesses for healthy and desirable dissemination of information.

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Working Papers | 2012

An Assessment of Livelihood and Educational Status of Sanitation Workers in Ahmedabad, Gujarat

Navdeep Mathur, Ashish Mishra, and Indraraj Dodiya

This study was conducted in 25 neighborhoods and 5 zones of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). A total of 50 sanitation workers were interviewed and through them we sought to understand the condition of their families as well. What was immediately notable was that there is a high incidence of death among men due to workplace-related injuries that has led to a rise in the number of widows and therefore a rise in women-headed households.

The research study made use of questionnaires, interviews with key informants and participant observation.

The main objectives of this study were:
• To understand the living conditions of sanitation workers after the Gujarat High Court judgement of 2006.
• To analyse the present livelihood and education status of sanitation workers in Ahmedabad as well as assess their awareness about laws and government schemes that directly pertain to them.

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Working Papers | 2012

Entry of Profit-Motivated Microfinance Institutions and Borrower Welfare

Ratul Lahkar and Viswanath Pingali

In this paper, we model welfare implications of entry of commercial microfinance institutions (MFIs). We initially characterize equilibrium with a sole fund-constrained benevolent credit institution followed by equilibrium with only profit-motivated MFIs. We show that entry of such MFIs can lead to an increase in interest and default and a decline in screening. However, it can still represent a Pareto improvement since: all agents previously denied credit can obtain loans, and existing clients have the option of seeking loans from MFIs. Finally, we model multiple group formation as an equilibrium mechanism, which allows more efficient risk diversification.

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