Partha Pratim Sengupta

A Comparative Study of Customer Satisfaction between Two Indian Retail Brands

The present study is an attempt to measure the customer satisfaction of two competitive Indian retail rands and draw a comparison between the two based on customer service quality and value creation. The comparative analysis is drawn using Multiple Regression Model and before that measurement scale has been defined to measure the regressand and the regressors using primary data. The findings include how and to what extent customer service quality and value creation affect customer satisfaction in case of both the brands. The number of factors influencing customer satisfaction is restricted to two, which can be increased as time progresses and modern retail businesses gets matured in Indian market with development and interplay of more factors and surely can provide further scope of future research. This research work will help the retail managers in general, including those of the concerned brands, to understand their key areas of strength comparatively and accordingly frame their strategies for decision making in order to improve customer satisfaction and gain competitive advantage.

Efficiency Measurement of Indian Life Insurance Industry in Post-Reforms Era

India initiated reforms in the insurance sector with the passage of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Bill by the Parliament in December 1999 and by opening up its insurance market to private competitors by the year 2000. However, the public sector company, Life Insurance Corporation of India, has overwhelmingly dominated the domestic life insurance market. As the market is still underdeveloped and the demand for life insurance is rising exponentially, there exists huge potential, opportunities as well as challenges (insurers have to focus on underwriting discipline and reduction in costs so as to remain profitable) for the managers of the insurance companies. Efficiency is the key concern of policymakers to encourage further development of the insurance industry as well as for the managers of the insurance companies to exist profitably in the business in the long run. This article focuses on this important issue. It uses a panel dataset of 14 life insurance companies over the period 2004–09, to evaluate their efficiency scores by applying Data Envelopment Analysis and calculating the scale efficiency. The results render light on policy design and implementations for future development of the life insurance industry in India.

Determinants of Farmers’ Decision-Making to Accept Crop Insurance: A Multinomial Logit Model Approach

With the developing trends of commercialization of agriculture, the magnitude of loss due to unfavorable eventualities is increasing and the farmers committed suicides. Burdwan district of West Bengal, India, becomes news headline because of farmer suicide. This study tries to underscore the elements which impact marginal farmers’ decision to accept Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojona (PMFBY). We collect primary data from 701 farmers in the study over period of from February 2017 to October 2017. Seven estimators, namely education, age, cultivating land area, self-help groups (SHGs), marital condition, gender, and income, are considered, and multinomial logistic regression was used to analyze the data. Results show that gender coefficient is negative which indicates female farmer are prone to agro insurance (access to PMFBY) than male farmers. Results indicate that farmers’ PMFBY and income are significant to the situation that one applies if others apply and get benefit.

FDI and Industry in Developed and Developing Countries: A Comparative Dynamic Panel Analysis

The paper investigates the sector-specific dynamic impacts of FDI inflow on industrial productivity on a comparative basis between developed and developing countries. Different studies observe both positive and negative impacts of FDI on economic growth. However, the existing evidences have not cleared the sector-wise impact of FDI, particularly in industrial sector separately in developing and developed economies. We explore and compare the dynamic relationship between FDI and industrial performances in two groups of countries using data from UNCTAD and World Bank over the period of 1970–2015 in the dynamic panel framework. The stochastic properties of variables are looked into by carrying out various panel unit root tests followed by the GMM estimation. Empirical findings imply that FDI inflows significantly promote industrial growth in both groups of countries; however, the relationship is bi-directional in developing countries and the degree of influence is higher in developed nations.

Remittances and Real Effective Exchange Rate: An Empirical Exercise with Indian Data

Remittances in India have been growing rapidly since 1991. Most of the studies find that remittance has had a significant impact on real effective exchange rate (REER). It is imperative to evaluate the impact of a transfer such as remittance and aid on country’s competitiveness. This article is an attempt to investigate the impact of workers’ remittances and some selected macro-variables on REER of India using annual data from 1980–2015. The study conducted autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) bound test co-integration approach to explore this long-run relationship. The ARDL bound test approach confirms significant long-run relationships among the selected variables at 1 per cent level of significance. In addition to this, the ARDL short-run error correction model implies that while REER may temporarily deviate from its long-run equilibrium, the deviations adjust towards the equilibrium level in the long run. JEL: F31, F35, F41

The Socioeconomic Dimensions for the Management of Haemophilia in India: An Empirical Study

Purpose: Haemophilia is an X-lined recessive disorder of coagulation that can affect any section of the society. Haemophilia is incurable and expensive lifelong disease; hence, the patient always brings in a financial crisis to manage its medication. In developing country like India the per capita health expenditure is 58 USD/year in 2012. The AHF therapy has been negligibly used in critical conditions of the disease. This study was undertaken to identify the social and economic dimensions that can influence the attitude of the medical practitioners for the choice of treatment therapy for a patient with haemophilia (PwH) in India. Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional study was conducted by collecting the primary data from the randomly selected 50 medical practitioners who were having at least one PwH on weekly basis. The EFA method was applied to determine the major socioeconomic dimensions of the choice of therapy. Findings: Four major dimensions were explored in the study that have significant impact on the attitude of medical practitioners. The availability of the AHF therapy is the most important dimension for consideration of a therapy for PwH in India. Moreover, the patient safety profile, patient affordability profile, and the experience of medical practitioners are three more dimensions that established the positive impact on attitude. Research limitations/implications: The methodology has socioeconomic tools for analysis and applied instrument has only 15 items for factor analysis. Practical implications: Governing bodies to rectify the policies on rare diseases because of inadequate supply of medicines. Academics would also benefit greatly since it will add value to existing body of literature on haemophilia in Indian context.

A route efficiency analysis using Shannon entropy-based modified DEA method and route characteristics investigation for urban bus transport in India

ABSTRACT In the context of urban bus transport, the efficiency study of the bus routes, the impact of the contextual factors on the efficiency, and environmental performance measurement have not been paid enough attention. For performance evaluation, scholars mostly apply conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) model whose limitation regarding handling the undesirable parameter limits its usefulness in the presence of undesirable outputs. Here, we propose a Shannon entropy-based output-oriented consolidated DEA model for the holistic performance measurements of the bus routes. Apart from operational and financial performance measurement, we introduce a novel ‘emission metric’ for environmental performance assessment of the bus routes. We show the context-specific implementation of several modified DEA models for measuring the efficiencies of the bus routes and integrate the efficiencies from different models into a single score using Shannon entropy approach. We apply the proposed method on 21 bus routes of Kolkata, an urban city in India. Our method facilitates consistent and more improved score in case of profit-making and loss-making routes, respectively. According to our analysis, route length, route overlapping, number of intermediate stoppages, and cost structure play a crucial role in the performance. We provide several route-specific as well as policy-level recommendations.

Foreign Exchange Rate and Agricultural Performances: A Time Series Exercise for India

The paper attempts to investigate and analyze the causal linkage between movements of foreign exchange rate and agricultural performances in terms of production and export empirically in India. Agricultural is described as the backbone of India, contributed largest but continuously declining share of national income. Indian agricultural exports, contribute a significant share of total exports, an important earner of foreign exchange. So foreign exchange rate can have a relationship with worldwide exports and well as output of India’s agricultural and allied commodities. In this context, the current paper explores the underlying long-term causal relationships among India’s foreign exchange rate and productions of exports of agricultural and allied commodities to fill gaps in the available literature. Yearly data on agricultural exports is calculated from DGCIS, Government of India over the period 1970–2015. Reserve Bank of India provides the yearly data on foreign exchange rate and data on GDP of agricultural and allied activities is collected from CSO, Government of India over the same period. The stochastic properties of variables are checked by applying ADF and PP unit root tests. Johansen cointegration test is employed followed by vector error correction mechanism (VECM) to find the long run dynamics. Our findings imply unidirectional long run causality between agricultural exports and India’s foreign exchange rate.

Unsystematic Risk Analysis with special reference to Maharatna, Navratna and Miniratna CPSEs companies in India: An observational study on Business Risk and Financial Risk

In todays dynamic business situation, the management of risk becomes very complicated. Making right and appropriate strategies to manage risk in accomplishing the wealth maximization objective of the corporate is utmost important. In the post liberalization era the drastic changes have been taken place in the policies concerning business of corporate which gives the paradigm shift to manage the business and financial risk. The present research study has been focusing on the analysis of the business and financial risk of the selected Maharatna, Navratna and Miniratna CPSEs companies of India; during the period of financial year 2008-2012. The purpose of this paper is to have an empirical examination regarding business and financial risk because of the changing environment of Indian economy. Successful supervision of risks and their forecast ought to help in lessen failures and losses. In that aspect, this paper focuses on Unsystematic Risk Analysis perspectives on Indias selected Maharatna, Navratna and Miniratna CPSEs companies for the period 2008-2012.

Financial soundness in Indian insurance sector: A comparison between two leading life insurers

In the pre-reform era, Life Insurance Corporation of India (L.I.C.I) dominated the Indian Life Insurance market. But the situation drastically changed since the beginning of the year 2000. With the development of the IRDA Act in 1999, private players started entering into the life insurance market. At the end of the FY 2011-12, there were 24 life insurance companies (inclusive of 1 public sector player), (L.I.C.I) operating in India. The present paper attempts to compare the level of financial soundness of two leading life insurers in India namely Life insurance Corporation of India (LICI) and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited (ICICI Pru). The former is the sole public-sector life insurance player whereas the latter is a dominant private-sector life insurance player in India at present. As financial intermediaries, life insurers tap savings of the public in the form of premium. Hence, they should be financially viable to maintain the timely and anticipated returns of the public. In this regard, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has come up with the CARAMELS model to analyze the financial soundness of several organizations spread across different industries. This study makes an attempt to analyze the financial soundness of two dominant life insurance players operating in India based on the CARAMELS framework in terms of capital adequacy, asset quality, reinsurance, management soundness, earnings and profitability, liquidity and solvency parameters.