Hosted by: Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

Venue: Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Kolkata, India

Date: December 18 – 21, 2012

About the Conference

Indian Institute of Management Calcutta hosted the Indian Finance Conference 2012 (IFC 2012) in its campus in Joka, Kolkata during December 18-21 2012.

The conference, which is jointly organised by Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, invites academics, researchers, doctoral students, and practitioners, to submit papers in all areas of finance from across the world. The India Finance Conference traces its roots to the two International Finance Conferences organized by Indian Institute of Management Calcutta in 2009 and 2011.

This initiative was joint together by Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and the name of the Conference was changed to India Finance Conference (IFC). The first India Finance Conference was held at Indian Institute of Bangalore during December 20-23, 2011.

The conference received and reviewed over 300 research papers from practitioners and academics from across the world out of which a total of 115 papers were accepted and the authors were invited to present their papers.  The shortlisted papers spanned most of the areas in finance including: Asset Pricing, Corporate Finance, Corporate Governance, Financial Policies and Regulations, Financial Reporting and IFRS, Industry and Economy, Risk Management, Behavioural Finance and Volatility.

Inauguration of the conference was done by Prof. Kaushik Basu who is currently the Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank and has previously been the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India. In his inaugural speech titled, Economic Reforms in India: Prof.Basu talked about the recent push of the Government in opening up the economy and also gave his take on the newer initiatives like Direct Cash Transfer and FDI in retail.

The conference also saw a number of tutorials and keynote speeches delivered by many senior academicians and researchers of very high repute from top institutes across the world. In his keynote speech titled, Do CEO’s matter, Prof.Sudipto Dasgupta, Chair Professor of Finance and Director of Centre for Asian Financial Markets at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), analysed the relationship between Corporate results and their leadership. Prof. Dasgupta also conducted a tutorial on Topics in Capital Strcuture research for the conference participants. Prof. Marti Subrahmanyam, Charles E. Merrill Professor of Finance, Stern School of Business, NYU, gave a keynote speech on the topic, Liquidity Effects in US Corporate Bond Market. Prof. Marti also conducted an on-demand session on Best Practices in Research Publications for the young researchers, which was highly appreciated.  Another session which was highly liked by the students and practitioners alike was the panel discussion on the topic, “Indian Financial Sector – Is it mature enough”. The panel included Mr. Ananda Bhowmick, Senior Director, Indian Rating and Research, Mr ArunKaul, CMD, Uco Bank and Prof. Jayanth Varma, Professor of Finance and Accounting at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.

Organising committed was led by Prof. Ashok Banerjee, Dean (NI & ER), IIM Calcutta. Prof. Ajay Pandey represented IIM Ahmedabad and Prof.SankarshanBasu represented IIM Bangalore in the organising committee. Mr Kumar Shubham, a 2nd year PGP student and the President of the Finance & Investment Club, IIM Calcutta, led a group of over 30 students to provide logistical and organisational support. The next season of Indian Finance Conference will be hosted in Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad in December 2013.