Comments to discuss, 4 December

Guest book

Comment by Anonymous:

1. Why do so many male economists have a beard ?

2. Why do most Indian female economists dress so simply and boringly ?

Is it not "cheap signaling"..why define ones profession by the attire..

Strengthening quarterly disclosure

Comment by kalashnikov63:

Yes. I think the formats were designed when CCI (controller of capital issues) was in existence. Ex., we rely on debt/equity figures as of last balance sheet, while firms go around carrying on their borrowing/equity activities which, unless we are insiders or participants in the markets, come to know only after 1.5 yrs (at the time of the next balance sheet).

Of course you will receive some notice for postal ballot in some cases, however for an intending investor, these vital info is never evidently available, unless he takes pain in searching for it.

There is a serious need for improvement on disclosures and also on adoption of IFRS, which is presently targetted for 2011, the same can be adopted mandatorily by 2009-10 for large firms, based on enterprise size. As most of the companies have information systems based on computers with real time data, compliance of more info will not be a great burden/cost.

Building a bond market

Comment by Yogesh:

Ajay,

Just wanted to ask you about the interest in covered bonds in India. In Europe Banks originate mortgages by issuing covered bonds to Investors. It is a $3 trillion market in Europe.

In the U.S. the Fed is keen to replace Mortgage Backed seucrities with covered bonds. Here is the speech by Bernanke at the mortage securitization conference. This means that Banks will retain the credit risk of the mortgageloans on their balance sheet unlike the current "originate to distribute" model where banks securitize the mortages and have no incentive to focus on credit risk.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20081031a.htm