Archive for December 20th, 2013

Post RBI’s Dec-13 policy, 2 top banks cut home loan rates…

December 20, 2013

More of a news item but an important one. SBI and HDFC have cut home loan rates post RBI policy on Dec-13. As RBI decided to hold rates, these two lenders have cut the rates.

Just a while back, RBI DG Anand Sinha was hauling banks on why they have not raised rates after two rate hikes in Sep and Oct-13. Now they have acted post a rate pause decision by RBI.

If other banks follow by cutting rates (even on selective products), it will be a joke on RBI’s attempt to lower inflation by hiking policy rates in Sep-13 and Oct-13.

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Posted in Indian Economy/Financial Markets | 1 Comment »

Why insurance is the most misunderstood industry?

December 20, 2013

Wharon Profs.  Howard C. Kunreuther and Mark V. Pauly, have co-authored a book titled, Insurance and Behavioral Economics: Improving Decisions in the Most Misunderstood Industry.

In this interview, they say why insurance is the most misunderstood industry. Some think it like investments, others do not insure as events are low probability:

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Posted in Academic research & research papers, Behavior Eco/Fin, Economics - macro, micro etc, Economist, Financial Markets/ Finance | 2 Comments »

Economic situation in Mizoram..A review

December 20, 2013

Deepak Mohanty of RBI gives a nice summary of economic conditions in Mizoram, one of the north east states in India.

Always nice to know about state economies and particularly those of which very little info is there. The speech has nice graphs covering most aspects of Mizoram economy.

Nice bit..

Posted in Indian Economy/Financial Markets | Leave a Comment »

India’s new trilemma..

December 20, 2013

I usually don’t miss Prof. Arvind Subramanian’s pieces but missed this one.

He highlights India’s new trilemma – macro stability, competitive democracy and financial integration. In previous years, India  chose the first two, in recent years it is last two:

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Posted in Indian Economy/Financial Markets | Leave a Comment »

Which countries were impacted more by Fed taper talk?

December 20, 2013

Well taper has finally arrived minus the hoopla which came with when the word taper. Taper was mentioned in May-2013 by Herr Bernnake and finally not done in Sep 2013 policy.

Barry Eichengreen and Poonam Gupta have done this really useful research ( a longer version of research here)evaluating which countries were impacted the most in the period May-2013 and Sep-2013. Ever since it was released yday, this voxeu article has been mentioned in most places, much like most Prof. Eichengreen work.

The results are quite surprising actually:

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Posted in Academic research & research papers, Central Banks / Monetary Policy, Economics - macro, micro etc, Economist, Financial Markets/ Finance | Leave a Comment »

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