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In the context of the developed economies, recent political economy scholarship has highlighted the growing role of intangible assets (brand equity, software, business processes, patents etc.) in corporate portfolios. Much of this literature has emphasized how intangible assets erect barriers to entry, produce artificial scarcity of key inputs, enhance the pricing power of firms and thus lead to greater and greater levels of concentration. Being as they are monopoly rights and privileges, intangible assets represent the relational power of their owner vis-à-vis those excluded from their ownership. While much of this literature has focused on the developed world, this paper turns its gaze to the case of a developing country and analyzes the patterns and trends of intangible assets for a sample of Indian firms for the period 2000–2022. The analysis reveals a substantial acceleration in the weight of net intangible assets relative to net physical assets, especially after 2008. It also suggests that the largest and most powerful corporations are the ones that have contributed to this spike. Ranked by assets, sales and ownership category, the results show that intangible asset accumulation has been the strongest in the highest echelons of the corporate hierarchy. Moreover, the patterns of intangible asset accumulation have been such that they have not been restricted to the traditional "rentier" sectors in the sense that their presence in the "productive" sectors has been as important if not more so. By focusing on firm-level patterns of intangible asset accumulation, the results show the internal and necessary connections between accumulation and value capture that undergirds modern day capitalism in the Southern peripheries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of the post-2011 economic slowdown in India that challenges liberal and Keynesian interpretations by drawing on Nitzan and Bichler's argument of 2009 that modern-day capitalist activity is shaped primarily by differential rather than absolute accumulation and the accumulation of power so as to squeeze and lock out competitors, monopolize resources, sabotage production and acquire unused capacity. In an exploration of the deep-rooted entanglements of power, crisis and accumulation, firm-level data from India are examined to show that a growth slowdown, economic crisis and destruction of the livelihoods of millions of people have provided an opportunity for top corporate houses to entrench their power and wealth. Crisis, in other words, has been good for business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of studies have analyzed the determinants of financial inclusion in India, but few if any have focused specifically on the factors that shape women's access to finance. This paper draws on the trove of women‐specific data collected in the fourth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS‐4), conducted in 2015–16 in India, to examine the factors that influence women's access to finance. The results indicate that while the forces that shape women's access to finance function at multiple levels, micro‐level factors appear to be powerful drivers of inclusion. The analysis reveals that household‐level economic indicators like wealth, gender of household head and their rural‐urban location are crucial, but so are individual‐level characteristics which explain approximately 83% of the variation in the multilevel regressions. Informal gender norms that govern women's mobility and economic activity crucially influence the ability of women to access loans and open bank accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits the writings of José Carlos Mariátegui on race and of B.R. Ambedkar on caste from a comparative perspective in light of recent debates within the left on identity and its relationship with class. The article highlights how both these radical thinkers foregrounded issues of race and caste in the context of rising nationalist/anti‐colonial tides and in the context of militant class struggles that had started to emerge in both regions in the 1920s and 30s. It tries to delineate the similarities and differences in the way each thinker theorized the intricate links between social oppression, class struggle, and imperialism. The comparative analysis raises questions that remain of great relevance to left movements even today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a three period overlapping generations model with child labour, exogenous increases in child health endowments increase child labour and fertility. On the other hand, cash transfer and compulsory education funded through foreign aid have a negative effect on child labour. Foreign aid has a positive effects on fertility if cash transfers for child support are unconditional, and no effect if transfers are conditional on time spent in school. This result supports conditional cash transfer programs like the Bolsa Familia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]