Syllabus

SYLLABI

The standard of papers in General English and General Studies will be such as may
be expected of a graduate of an Indian University.
The standard of papers in the other subjects will be that of the Master’s degree
examination of an Indian University in the relevant disciplines. The candidates will be
expected to illustrate theory by facts, and to analyse problems with the help of theory.
They will be expected to be particularly conversant with Indian problems in the field of
Economic/Statistics.

GENERAL ENGLISH
Candidates will be required to write an essay in English. Other questions will be
designed to test their understanding of English and workmanlike use of words.
Passages will usually be set for summary or precis.


GENERAL STUDIES
General Knowledge including knowledge of current events and of such matters of
every day observation and experience in their scientific aspects as may be expected
of an educated person who has not made a special study of any scientific subject. The
paper will also include questions on Indian Polity including the political system and
the Constitution of India, History of India and Geography of a nature which the candidate
should be able to answer without special study.


GENERAL ECONOMICS-I
PART A:
1. Theory of Consumer’s Demand: Cardinal utility Analysis; Marginal utility and
demand, Consumer’s surplus, Indifference curve Analysis and utility function, Price
income and substitution effects, Slutsky theorem and derivation of demand curve,
Revealed preference theory. Duality and indirect utility function and expenditure
function, Choice under risk and uncertainty.
2. Theory of Production: Factors of production and production function. Forms of
Production Functions: Cobb-Douglas, CES and Fixed coefficient type, Translogproduction function. Laws of return, Returns to scale and Return to factors of production.
Duality and cost function, Measures of productive efficiency of firms, technical and
allocative efficiency. Partial Equilibrium versus General Equilibrium approach.
Equilibrium of the firm and industry.
3. Theory of Value: Pricing under different market structures, public sector pricing,
marginal cost pricing, peak load pricing, cross-subsidy free pricing and average cost
pricing. Marshallian and Walrasian stability analysis. Pricing with incomplete
information and moral hazard problems.
4. Theory of Distribution: Neo classical distribution theories; Marginal productivity
theory of determination of factor prices, Factor shares and adding up problems. Euler’s
theorem, Pricing of factors under imperfect competition, monopoly and bilateral
monopoly. Macro-distribution theories of Ricardo, Marx, Kaldor, Kalecki.
5. Welfare Economics: Inter-personal comparison and aggregation problem, Public
goods and externality, Divergence between social and private welfare, compensation
principle. Pareto optimality. Social choice and other recent schools, including Coase
and Sen and Game theory.
PART B:
Quantitative Methods in Economics:
1. Mathematical Methods in Economics: Differentiation and Integration and their
application in economics. Optimisation techniques, Sets, Matrices and their application
in economics. Linear algebra and Linear programming in economics and Input-output
model of Leontief.
2. Statistical and Econometric Methods: Measures of central tendency and
dispersions, Correlation and Regression. Time series. Index numbers. Sampling
and Survey methods. Testing of hypothesis, simple non-parametric tests. Drawing of
curves based on various linear and non-linear function. Least square methods and
other multivariate analysis (only concepts and interpretation of results). Analysis of
Variance, Factor analysis, Principle component analysis, Discriminant analysis.
Income distribution: Pareto law of Distribution, lognormal distribution, measurement
of income inequality. Lorenze curve and Gini coefficient.


GENERAL ECONOMICS-II
1. Economic Thought: Mercantilism Physiocrats, Clasical, Marxist, Neo-classical,
Keynesian and Monetarist schools of thought.
2. Concept of National Income and Social Accounting: Measurement of National
Income, Inter relationship between three measures of national income in the presence
of the Government sector and International transactions. Environmental considerations,
Green national income.
3. Theory of employment, Output, Inflation, Money and Finance: The Classical theory
of Employment and Output and Neo classical approaches. Equilibrium, analysis under
classical and neo classical analysis. Keynesian theory of Employment and output.
Post Keynesian developments. The inflationary gap; Demand pull versus cost push
inflation, the Philip’s curve and its policy implication. Classical theory on Money,
Quantity theory of Money. Friedman’s restatement of the quantity theory, the neutrality
of money. The supply and demand for loanable funds and equilibrium in financial
markets, Keynes’ theory on demand for money.
4. Financial and Capital Market: Finance and economic development, financial
markets, stock market, gift market, banking and insurance. Equity markets, Role of
Primary and Secondary markets and efficiency, Derivatives markets; Futures and
options.
5. Economic Growth and Development: Concepts of Economic Growth and
Development and their measurement: characteristics of less developed countries and
obstacles to their development – growth, poverty and income distribution. Theories of
growth: Classical Approach: Adam Smith, Marx and Schumpeter – Neo classical
approach; Robinson, Solow, Kaldor and harrod Domar. Theories of Economic
Development, rostow, Rosenstein-Roden, Nurske, Hirschman, Leibenstien and Arthur
Lewis, Amin and Frank (Dependency school) respective role of the state and the
market. Utilitarian and Welfariest approach to social development and A K Sen’s
critique. Sen’s capability approach to economic development. The Human
Development Index. Physical quality of Life Index and Human Povery Index.
6. International Economics: Gains from International Trade, Terms of Trade, policy,
international trade and economic development – Theories of International Trade;
Ricardo, Haberler, Heckscher-Ohlin and Stopler-Samuelson – Theory of Tariffs –
Regional Trade Arrangements.
7. Balance of Payments: Disequilibrium in Balance of Payments, Mechanism of
Adjustments, Foreign Trade Multiplier, Exchange Rates, Import and Exchange Controls
and Multiple Exchange Rates.
8. Global Institutions: UN agencies dealing with economic aspects, World Bank, IMF
and WTO, Multinational Corporations.


GENERAL ECONOMICS-III
1. Public Finance: Theories of taxation: Optimal taxes and tax reforms, incidence of
taxation; Theories of public expenditure: objectives and effects of public expenditure,
public expenditure policy and social cost benefit analysis, criteria of public investment
decisions social rate of discount, shadow prices of investment, unskilled labour and
foreign exchange. Budgetary deficits. Theory of public debt management.
2. Environmental Economics: Environmentally sustainable development, Green GDP,
UN Methodology of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting.
Environmental Values: Users and non-users values; option value. Valuation Methods:
Stated and revealed preference methods. Design of Environmental Policy Instruments:
Pollution taxes and pollution permits, collective action and informal regulation by local
communities. Theories of exhaustible and renewable resources. International
environmental agreements. Climatic change problems. Kyoto protocol, tradable permits
and carbon taxes.
3. Industrial Economics: Market structure, conduct and performance of firms, product
differentiation and market concentration, monopolistic price theory and oligopolistic
interdependence and pricing, entry preventing pricing, micro level investment decisions
and the behavior of firms, research and development and innovation, market structure
and profitability, public policy and development of firms.
4. State, Market and Planning: Planning in a developing economy. Planning regulation
and market. Indicative Planning. Decentralised Planning.


INDIAN ECONOMICS
1. History of Development and Planning: Alternative Development Strategies – goal
of self reliance based on import substitution and protection, the post 1991 globalisation
strategies based on stabilization and structural adjustment packages: fiscal reforms,
financial sector reforms and trade reforms.
2. Federal Finance: Constitutional provisions relating to fiscal and financial powers of
the states, Finance Commissions and their formulae for sharing taxes, Financial aspect
of Sarkaria Commission Report, Financial aspects of 73rd and 74th Constitutional
Amendments.

3. Poverty, Unemployment and Human Development: Estimates of inequality and
poverty measures for India, appraisal of Government measures, India’s human
development record in global perspective. India’s population policy and development.
4. Agriculture and Rural Development Strategies: Technologies and institutions,
land relations and land reforms, rural credit, modern farm inputs and marketing – price
policy and subsidies; commercialization and diversification. Rural development
programmes including poverty alleviation programmes, development of economic
and social infrastructure and New Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
5. India’s experience with Urbanisation and Migration: Different types of migratory
flows and their impact on the economies of their origin and destination, the process of
growth of urban settlements; urban development strategies.
6. Industry: Strategy of Industrial development: Industrial Policy Reforms; Reservation
Policy relating to small scale industries. Competition policy, Sources of industrial
finances. Bank, share market, insurace companies, pension funds, non-banking
sources and foreign direct investment, role of foreign capital for direct investment and
portfolio investment, Public Sector reform, privatization and disinvestments.
7. Labour: Employment, unemployment and under-employment, industrial relations
and labour welfare – strategies for employment generation – Urban labour market
and informal sector employment, Report of National Commission on Labour, Social
issues relating to labour e.g. Child Labour, Bonded Labour, International Labour
Standard and its impact.
8. Foreign Trade: Sailent features of India’s foreign trade, composition, direction and
organization of trade, recent changes in trade policy, balance of payments, tariff policy,
exchange rate, India and WTO requirements.
9. Money and Banking: Financial sector reforms, Organisation of India’s money market,
changing roles of the Reserve Bank of India, commercial banks, development finance
institutions, foreign banks and non-banking financial institutions, Indian capital market
and SEBI, Development in Global Financial Market and its relationship with Indian
Financial Sector.
10. Inflation: Definition, trends, estimates, consequences and remedies (control):
Wholesale Price Index, Consumer Price Index: components and trends.
11. Budgeting and Fiscal Policy: Tax, expenditure, budgetary deficits, pension and
fiscal reforms, Public debt management and reforms, Fiscal Responsibility and Budget
Management (FRBM) Act, Black money and Parallel economy in India definition,
estimates, genesis, consequences and remedies.