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The presence of seasonal effects in monthly returns has been reported in several developed and emerging stock markets. The objective of this study is to explore the interplay between the month-of-the-year effect and market crash effects on monthly returns in Indian stock markets. The study uses dummy variable multiple linear regression to assess the seasonality of stock market returns and the impact of market crashes on the same. The results of the study provide evidence for a month-of-the-year effect in Indian stock markets, particularly positive November, August, and December effects, and a negative March effect. Further, the study suggests that the incidence of market crashes reduces the seasonal effects.

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Conspicuous consumption involves the overt display of possessions that denote wealth and status, to communicate a distinctive self-image to others. Here, product satisfaction is often derived from audience reaction as opposed to utility from product use. Materialism is the importance a consumer attaches to worldly possessions. Materialists place possessions and their acquisition at the centre of their lives. Several studies have established that various personality traits such as materialism and social factors like susceptibility to social influence explain conspicuous consumption. This paper examines the extent of influence of materialism on conspicuous consumption tendencies of a convenience sample of 640 emigrants from Kerala. The study validates that materialism significantly relates to conspicuous consumption which means materialism is positively related to buying products that confer status. It is also seen to be instrumental in triggering conspicuous consumption among the expatriate community. Variation in conspicuous consumption with respect to gender, age, education, occupation, and income levels are also examined. The study provides interesting insights for marketers in developing consumer-centric approach towards product-development, pricing and promotions and also assists in psychographic segmentation of status seekers. It proposes means to develop and manage meaningful engagement with consumers by exhorting marketers to assume greater social responsibility and focus on societal outcomes stemming from promoting a lifestyle centred on materialism and conspicuous displays of wealth.

The global financial crisis and the subsequent Euro-zone crises have resulted in widespread failure of banking systems worldwide. The Indian banking system, which was initially hailed to be unaffected by the crises, was affected indirectly, mainly on account of growing trade and financial integration with the global economy. Although Indian banks were not pushed to the point of insolvency, bank performance benchmarking and evaluation have become important in the dynamic banking environment in India in order to ensure sustained profitability and avoid undue risks.The CAMELS model is one of the most widely-used frameworks for bank performance evaluation (Sahajwala and van der Bergh, 2000). The CAMELS methodology provides a broader view of bank performance than single ratios such as return on equity, particularly as it takes account of both profitability and risk factors in representing bank performance. Several studies have proposed multi-criteria decision models for bank performance measurement (Doumpos and Zopounidis, 2011).The objective of the present study is to integrate multivariate and multi-criteria decision models in bank performance measurement. The study uses the factor structure of the CAMELS model to derive weights for the different criteria in the PROMETHEE methodology. The resulting PROMETHEE scores are used to rank banks under different dimensions, and to compare the performance of public sector and private sector banks in India.

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