By Kavaljit Singh | Column, Civil Society | September-October 2007
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s sermon on inclusive growth at an annual summit of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) evoked sharp reactions from the corporate world and media. Most comments were aimed at resisting the enforcement of a Ten-Point Social Charter spelt out by the Prime Minister through regulatory and legislative measures. “The government cannot legislate CEO salaries,” was industry’s common refrain. This is nothing but a complete misreading of the Social Charter because it nowhere hints at curbing…
In the last five decades, there have been dramatic swings in the policy pendulum governing foreign investments at various levels in response to changing global political context. In the 1960s and 70s, the dominant thinking was foreign investments should be restricted as it interferes in the domestic economic policy making besides posing a threat to national sovereignty. The 1980s and 90s witnessed major swings in the investment policy pendulum towards greater liberalization of the regulatory framework at the national…
The large-scale tax avoidance practices used by transnational corporations (TNCs) came into public notice recently when the giant drug corporation, GlaxoSmithKline, agreed to pay the US government $3.4 billion to settle a long-running dispute over its tax dealings between the UK parent company and its American subsidiary. This was the largest settlement of a tax dispute in the US. The investigations carried out by Internal Revenue Service found that the American subsidiary of GlaxoSmithKline overpaid its UK parent company…
The mid-1990s witnessed the dramatic emergence of transnational corporations from the developing world. Although much of the investment by these corporations is concentrated in other developing countries (South-South), they are increasingly investing heavily in developed countries (South-North) as well. The South-South and South-North FDI flows are growing much faster than the traditional North-South FDI flows. However, 87 per cent of the total outward FDI flows in 2004 originated from just 10 developing countries.
The proponents of banking sector liberalization claim that the entry of foreign banks in the poor and developing world is highly desirable and beneficial. But recent empirical evidence suggests that the entry of foreign banks could lead to misallocation of credit, which in turn could negatively affect economic growth prospects as bank credit is a vital input for investment and growth. As the focus of the global banking industry appears to be on India and China, this note analyses…
