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This paper aims to discuss the changes in the new 2011-12 base year series of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) to determine whether the new series has improved the understanding of the growth in the manufacturing sector.

This paper develops a simple framework to separately estimate the contribution of value- and volume-based commodities in the growth of the manufacturing index. The authors present a case study by analysing the growth performance of IIP drugs and pharmaceuticals sector by comparing it with real net sales of a common sample of firms in this segment.

The authors find that growth in value-based commodities contributes significantly in moving the index in either direction, and that high growth in value-based commodities coincides with periods of low inflation. On comparability, using real net sales as an alternate indicator of industrial output for the pharmaceuticals sector, the authors find that IIP and real net sales show contrasting trends, thereby raising issues of reliability. The authors also find that the IIP shows a disconnect with growth rates from Annual Survey of Industries for several industries.

The divergence between two measures of industrial activity raises crucial questions on the representativeness of the IIP.

The study builds a framework to separately estimate the contribution of value- and volume-based commodities in the growth of the manufacturing index.

In the continuing endeavour to work towards ever better management, the project manager has a crucial role to play. This monograph assesses the requirements of project management in terms of training and experience, demonstrates what sort of person the project manager should be, and also the role that should be played by the project team. In order to illustrate the manner in which the essential qualities in both the project manager and his team are displayed in action a number of completed projects worldwide are reviewed. Both successful projects and disastrous projects are used to demonstrate the way in which the problems encountered in real life can be met and overcome. In conclusion both the prospects and the problems that the future may hold for the project manager are assessed.

World over, change of base year in the gross domestic product (GDP) is a standard practice of GDP estimation. However, unless a consistent series of GDP is released with respect to the new base for the earlier period, the existence of multiple growth rates creates problems for applied researchers, policymakers and the general public alike. Faced with such a menu of GDP series researchers often try to interpolate a consistent series of GDP. The main purpose of this paper is to analyses the nature of the data generating process of such multiple interpolated series of quarterly growth rates and tries to discern the consistency of such processes.

The present paper tries to look into the statistical implications and complications of such interpolated quarterly GDP/growth series in India in terms of three series of GDP, namely, with 1999–2000, 2004–2005 and 2011–2012 as its bases.

The analysis reveals that as a result of a change of base year, the nature of the data generating process of the old and new GDP series could undergo changes and experience different breakpoints. While all these conclusions seem to be valid for GDP growth at quarterly intervals, taking the data at annual frequency is less problematic.

The observation suggests that in most applied work, researchers may not have the luxury of only working with annual data and certain consistency checks will be necessary to check the veracity of the results based on quarterly data with those based on annual data. Second, moving forward it may be useful for the Authorities to make a transition to a chain-based linking method rather than fixed time-period-based bases as is currently done.

The analysis of Indian GDP in this paper is, perhaps, indicative of the fact that usage of quarterly GDP data is to be handled with caution and it is preferable that any serious empirical analysis uses annual GDP data whenever it is available/feasible. The comparison of GDP growth rates at different frequencies and examining the true nature of the process are quite unique in their contribution towards empirical macroeconomic research.