Interesting readings

• Tackling systemic risk is no job for the status quo by William Donaldson and Arthur Levitt, in the Financial Times.
• Short-Selling Bans around the World: Evidence from the 2007-09 Crisis by Alessandro Beber and Marco Pagano. The abstract reads: Most stock exchange regulators around the world reacted to the financial crisis of 2007-2009 by imposing bans or regulatory constraints on short-selling by market participants. We use the large amount of evidence generated by these regime changes to investigate their effects on liquidity, price discovery and stock returns. Since bans were enacted and lifted at different dates in different countries, and in some countries applied to financial stocks only, we identify their effects with panel data techniques, and find that bans (i) were detrimental for liquidity, especially for stocks with small market capitalization and high volatility; (ii) slowed down price discovery, especially in bear market phases, and (iii) failed to support stock prices..
• A story on regulatory impact assessments.
• Mahesh Vyas on improving disclosure.
• Let bidding begin in the market by Rajesh Chakrabarti, in Financial Express.
• Ashok Desai in Business World on the scandal that is ULIPs.
• Sanjeev Sanyal in Business Standard on making Bombay work.
• At 250 kph, the Bombay-Delhi distance of 1200 km is covered in 5 hours. At 376 kph (which the Chinese are implementing today), it's roughly 3 hours. If that sounds exciting, read Bullet trains for America? by Mark Reutter.
• A pair of articles from The Economist on India and capital controls: A world apart, and Raining on India's parade.
• Anita Bhoir in Mint on the proposed Standard Chartered IDR.
• Looking back at Indira Gandhi: Ila Patnaik in Financial Express, and Shekhar Gupta in Indian Express.
• A great collection of pictures about the Berlin Wall. Do not miss the symbolism of #34, where Lech Walesa starts the toppling of the dominos.
• New York Times blogs on weight loss and exercise; you might like to also see my page on this which has a framework within which the NYT blog post can be placed.
• India's dirty role in Sri Lankan war by Brahma Chellaney in [covert].
• Terror in Mumbai, a documentary on HBO on 19 November.