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Showing posts with the label RBI

Decision Making as Output and Bounded Rationality

  The classical economics theories proceed on the assumption of rational agents. Rationality implies the economic agents undertake actions or exercise choices based on the cost-benefit analysis they undertake. The assumption further posits that there exists no information asymmetry and thus the agent is aware of all the costs and benefits associated with the choice he or she has exercised. The behavioral school contested the decision stating the decisions in practice are often irrational. Implied there is a continuous departure from rationality. Rationality in the views of the behavioral school is more an exception to the norm rather a rule. The past posts have discussed the limitations of this view by the behavioral school. Economics has often posited rationality in the context in which the choices are exercised rather than theoretical abstract view of rational action. Rational action in theory seems to be grounded in zero restraint situation yet in practice, there are numerous restra

Reviewing Inflation Targeting

  In 2016, India officially adopted inflation targeting as the objective of the monetary policy. With five years elapsed since the Urijit Patel committee submitted its report and later adopted, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is all set to review the policy. The committee headed by Urijit Patel had suggested 4% as the targeted inflation with of course a permitted band of plus or minus two percent. In other words, the RBI policy would have to ensure the inflation remains within the range of 2-6%. The repo rate was made the benchmark interest rate around which the RBI stance would revolve. Based on the data and evidence, it was believed that 1.25% would be the ideal real repo rate. In other words, at this real repo rate, the economy grow at a level it would have grown if there was full employment. This was something akin to what Philips Curve would have projected around. The four percent inflation mark was perhaps viewed in the Philips Curve terminology as non-accelerating   inflation ra

RBI, Onions and Monetary Policy

The outcome of RBI’s sixth and final bimonthly monetary policy statement for the FY 2019-20 is unsurprising. Repo has been retained at 5.15% and therefore the other rates like MSF, reverse repo, bank rate etc. too remain unchanged. RBI projects a growth of 6% something in alignment with what the budget has projected. They anticipate higher uncertainty in inflation. The question however, is given the macroeconomic dynamics at the current instant, could RBI stance been bolder or was it cautious reiteration of its mandate. As one delves in to the RBI monetary policy statement (available here ) some interesting pointers emerge. Global headwinds continue to impact the Indian economy too. There is no respite for European economies like France and Italy on the continued downward growth trend. Britain will have to confront with post Brexit uncertainties. US Iran tensions may have eased down momentarily but the impact might take a time to ease out, US-China trade wars demonstrate ebbs an