GENERAL ENGLISH
Candidates will be required to write an essay in English. Other questions will be
designed to test their understanding of English and workman like 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
everyday 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 a
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. Simple games of complete information,
Concept of Nash equilibrium.
2. Theory of Production: Factors of production and production function. Forms of
Production Functions: Cobb Douglas, CES and Fixed coefficient type, Translog
production 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 aggression problem, Public
goods and externalities, Divergence between social and private welfare, compensation
principle. Pareto optimality. Social choice and other recent schools, including Coase
and Sen.
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 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, longnormal distribution,
measurement of income inequality. Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient. Univariate and
multivariate regression analysis. Problems and remedies of Hetroscedasticity,
Autocorrelation and Multicollnearity.
GENERAL ECONOMICS – II
1. Economic Thought: Mercantilism Physiocrats, Classical, 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 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 of
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. IS-LM Model and AD-AS
Model in Keynesian Theory.
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; Future 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 scool) respective role of state and the
market. Utilitarian and Welfarist 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 Poverty Index. Basics
of Endogenous Growth Theory.
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. Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, Global Financial Crisis
of 2008 and Euro Zone Crisis- Causes and Impact
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. IS-LM Model and Mundell- Fleming Model of
Balance of Payments.
8. Global Institutions: UN agencies dealing with economic aspects, role of Multilateral
Development Bodies (MDBs), such as World Bank, IMF and WTO, Multinational
Corporations. G-20.
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, Rio process
1992 to 2012, 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, RIO Conventions.
Climatic change problems. Kyoto protocol, UNFCC, Bali Action Plan, Agreements up
to 2017, tradable permits and carbon taxes. Carbon Markets and Market
Mechanisms. Climate Change Finance and Green Climate Fund.
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 behaviour 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 stabilisation 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. 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.
4. 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.
5. Agriculture and Rural Development Strategies— Technologies and institutions,
land relations and land reforms, rural credit, modern farm inputs and marketing—
price policy and subsidies; commercialisation and diversification. Rural
development programmes including poverty alleviation programmes, development of
economic and social infrastructure and New Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
6. 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.
7. Industry: Strategy of industrial development— Industrial Policy Reform; Reservation
Policy relating to small scale industries. Competition policy, Sources of industrial
finances. Bank, share market, insurance companies, pension funds, non-banking
sources and foreign direct investment, role of foreign capital for direct investment and
portfolio investment, Public sector reform, privatisation and disinvestment.
8. Labour—Employment, unemployment and underemployment, 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.
9. Foreign trade—Salient features of India’s foreign trade, composition, direction and
organisation of trade, recent changes in trade, balance of payments, tariff policy,
exchange rate, India and WTO requirements. Bilateral Trade Agreements and their
implications.
10. 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. Commodity Market in India-Spot and
Futures Market, Role of FMC.
11. Inflation—Definition, trends, estimates, consequences and remedies (control):
Wholesale Price Index. Consumer Price Index: components and trends.
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