Economy

This paper highlights the possible consequences of the pandemic on the stock markets. It notes that higher profitability in the past years, better growth opportunities in the stock market, and being a stand-alone firm have a favourable impact on stock price reactions to COVID-19 shocks and, hence, they make such firms more resilient.

Consequent to the lifting of the “ban” imposed on the trade of crypto-assets by the Supreme Court of India, there has been a surge of interest in investing in crypto-assets from the general public, spurred by aggressive marketing campaigns by well-funded start-ups. In the absence of proper regulation, there is a very real danger that the public may be mis-sold this product with harm to the wider economy.

The growth of the manufacturing sector is important for employing a growing labour force and much is also dependent on their skill level. Enterprise surveys in six sample towns of Bihar, a state characterised by slow industrialisation and urbanisation, find evidence of fairly strong rural–urban linkages for manufacturing enterprises. Although the linkages indicate that the manufacturing sector has the maximum potential to create employment by absorbing the surplus labour in the rural areas, it was found that this sector has been languishing in the sample towns. The findings also flag the challenges and areas of growth for industries.

The Political Economy of Land Acquisition in India: How a Village Stops Being One by Dhanmanjiri Sathe, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan (Imprint by Springer Nature), 2017; pp xvi + 204, price not indicated.

The National Accounts Statistics series with the base year 2011–12 raised controversy on the integrity of the gross domestic product estimates.