Articles by Sushil Khanna

This paper examines the paradox of the diminishing institutional role of large central public sector enterprises despite rising profitability and investment as a result of their being efficient competitors in the new market environment. Under the neo-liberal regime of the last two decades, these CPSES, with large cash balances and improved profitability, have emerged as the main drivers of public savings and investment. But instead of enhancing their strategic role, the union government has been treating them as cash cows. A comparison of the performance of large private and public sector firms in the manufacturing sector shows that the CPSES have provided higher returns on capital employed. And, performance in terms of technical parameters is in no way inferior to that of their private counterparts. Yet the Modi government intends to either privatise these CPSES or sell a significant part of their equity shares, a decision that is devoid of both strategic and business sense.

Two tributes to the life and work of Nirmal Kumar Chandra, the Kolkata-based multifaceted scholar.

This essay looks at the political economy of Pakistan during the last two decades. Why has Pakistan faced recurrent balance of payments difficulties? Are the structure of production and exports the culprits? The essay first seeks to throw light on the current crisis facing Pakistan, and then goes on to examine the crisis of 1998 and the stabilisation strategy pursued. This is followed by a look at the long-term evolution of Pakistan's economic policies from the days of Z A Bhutto, touching upon the structural weaknesses that have plagued the economy.

This paper examines the economic and financial implications of some of the regulations introduced by the new Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) through the guidelines it has periodically issued. The regulations apply to investment or merchant banking services required for corporate issues of long-term securities in India, The authors find that some implications of the guidelines may be in conflict with the professed objective of the current economic policy to induce the corporate sector to raise external funds from private investors. Further, the guidelines may be self-defeating in that they may result in less, rather than more, information for the investing public about the typically unobservable quality of a new issue.

The West Bengal government's annual Economic Survey for 1988-89 presents a picture of short-term movements which, though undoubtedly encouraging, can be misleading in a state that has been experiencing agricultural stagnation that is a decade old and industrial contraction for almost two decades.