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After following import-substituting policies for nearly three decades, India opted for liberal economic regime in the early 1990s. Since then, it has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world. However, concerns have been raised about the distributional consequences of liberalization. This article attempts to quantify the impact of trade on wage inequality in the Indian manufacturing sector. Estimating a relative wage equation with a panel of 49 manufacturing industries, this article found a positive association between trade and wage disparity in Indian manufacturing, but the association is contingent on the direction of trade. Our results show that after controlling skill-biased technological change and other variables, trade, especially exports to developed and developing countries, has an opposite impact on wage disparity.

With the revival of global economy, the issues of exit policies and rebalancing global growth have taken center stage in policy discussions. Since many emerging Asian economies presently have large current account surpluses, the issue of rebalancing has special significance for Asia. While India, like other Asian economies, suffered only an indirect impact from the financial crisis, its current policy challenges appear to be different from those facing the People's Republic of China (PRC) and other East Asian economies, which have relied heavily on external demand and access to the US market for their growth momentum. With a negative contribution of net exports to gross domestic product growth along with foreign exchange reserves, which amount to a mere one-ninth of the PRC's, the issue of Trans-Pacific rebalancing of economic growth does not have the same connotations for India as it does for other East Asian economies. However, this paper argues that, given its large domestic market, India could help other East Asian economies in their efforts to achieve greater export diversification and rebalancing of growth.

India's financial sector is not deeply integrated with the global financial system, which spared it the first round adverse effects of the global financial crisis and left Indian banks mostly unaffected. However, as the financial crisis morphed in to a full-blown global economic downturn, India could not escape the second round effects. The global crisis has affected India through three distinct channels: financial markets, trade flows, and exchange rates. The reversal in capital inflows, which created a credit crunch in domestic markets along with a severe deterioration in export demand, contributed to the decline of gross domestic product by more than 2 percentage points in the fiscal year 2008-2009. In line with efforts taken by governments and central banks all over the world, the Government and the Reserve Bank of India took aggressive countercyclical measures, sharply relaxing monetary policy and introducing a fiscal stimulus to boost domestic demand. However, this paper argues that with very limited fiscal maneuverability and the limited traction of monetary policy, policy measures to restore the Indian gross domestic product growth back to its potential rate of 8-9% must focus on addressing the structural constraints that are holding down private investment demand.

Impact of changes in policy rate of interest on demand for bank credit is examined for seven emerging market economies including India for the period 2002 to 2010. Panel data techniques are used after ruling out the presence of unit roots. The results show that when other determinants, like domestic demand pressure, export demand and impact of stock market signals are controlled for, change in policy rate of interest is an important determinant of firms' demand for bank credit. The results confirm that monetary policy is an important countercyclical tool for setting the pace of economic activity.

This paper analyses the determinants of competitiveness of auto industry in India, based on a field survey and a quantitative analysis of secondary data. It highlights that all segments of Indian auto sector are growing at a fairly high rates and their productivity as well as export intensity is on the rise. Domestic sales are rising, but they have declined in certain sub-segments of vehicles. However, the R&D expenditure has been scarce. Effective rate of protection of automobile assembly is far higher than that of auto-components manufacturing. Unorganised sector, which is quite significant in auto-component manufacturing, has grown more rapidly in the urban areas than in the rural areas. The econometric analysis suggests various measures that could be taken by the government, particularly, the credit facilitation for SMEs. A field survey comprising auto manufacturers in India underlines various constraints faced by the sector, such as the shortage of skilled manpower along with poor infrastructure, fluctuating steel prices and unavailability of land at reasonable price. This suggests that the government could facilitate the industry in becoming more competitive by taking steps such as structural fiscal reforms, cut in import duties of raw materials and capital goods, promotion of R&D and FDI, training facilities, research-backed negotiations of FTAs, roadmap for harmonising emission norms across the country and infrastructure improvement. Industry, on the other hand, should improve its R&D capabilities and market research.