Journal Press India®
We are pleased to bring to our readers this issue of MUDRA: Journal of Finance and Accounting, that includes papers focusing on pertinent domains of finance and accounting while promoting interdisciplinarity at the same time.
The paper by Parul Bhatia and Ajay Kumar Patel investigates the market efficiency of Indian agricultural sector and find that as per dividend pay-out in varied windows, agriculture sector’s market is efficient although dividends may not be the only factor for an increase or decrease in stock returns. Thus, the efficiency of the market will not help in predicting the future return based on the historical return of the companies in the agriculture sector.
Partha Ghosh in his paper on ‘Appraisal of fixed assets: A comparative study of selected Public Sector Units of India’ observes and compares the effectiveness of the use of fixed assets between sample firms. Using secondary data and relevant financial ratios, an inter-firm comparison is carried out to examine there is any significant difference in fixed assets performance.
Financial management practices are an integral part of the finance function and in this context, the paper by Peter Gwesso Matare and T. N. Sreedhara explore financial management practices and the growth of MSMEs in Tanzania. Their study finds that financial innovations influence the growth of MSMEs of Tanzania abundantly and the authors recommend that managers should have an effective business support system as a key condition for the success of investment capacity building. Another important financial management aspect deals with capital structure and this aspect is examined in the paper by Rahul Sarkar and Priyanka Das for the Indian pharmaceutical industry. This study tests the relationship between the capital structure variables and financial performance for top 5 pharmaceutical companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Using panel data regression analysis, the results shows that both Long Term Debt to Total Assets and firm size have statistically significant negative impact on the financial performance of the pharmaceutical industry.
An interesting aspect of financing of public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has been dealt with by M. C. Pande and Monika Pathak in their paper wherein they study flow of funds and their utilisation in selected HEIs of Uttarakhand. The authors recommend that if the government wishes to increase the quality of education in the state, it will have to make huge investments in land, buildings and infrastructure of colleges and filling up of posts of teaching and not teaching staff. A related aspect of importance for a nation is the financing of healthcare. Archana Bakshi, in her paper argues that for developing countries, health insurance can play an invaluable role in improving access to healthcare facilities. The paper examines the trends of premiums of companies offering health insurance in India and the CAGR trend is found to be statistically significant for most of the companies under study.
This issue has two case studies. One of them by K. Ashokkumar deals with the cost and return analysis of natural rubber plantations in Pathanamthitta district in Kerala. As rubber is a perennial crop that requires huge cultivation and maintenance cost, therefore the author conducts this analysis to measure the economic worth of investment in rubber plantation. The other case study is by Mohd Abass Bhat and Shagufta Tariq on ‘Factors affecting adoption of internet banking: A study of Jammu and Kashmir with special reference to J & K Bank.’ Using primary data, the findings of the paper suggest that concerned authorities should take immediate steps to avoid difficulties related to security aspect, perceived usefulness, and ease of use.
We hope that our readers find this issue insightful and intellectually stimulating to further interesting discussion on various aspects of finance and accounting.
Prof. Muralidhar A. Lokhande
Dr. Pavnesh Kumar
Editors