RBI Grade ‘B’ officers Exam 2015: Syllabus

Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India’s Central bank is all set to conduct Recruitment of officers in Grade ‘B’ (General) examination in the month of November 2015. Here the banking team of jagran josh is providing the details of the examination.

Scheme of Selection: Selection will be through ON-LINE Examinations and interview. Examinations will be held in two phases as described in following paragraphs.

i. Phase-I online Examination (Objective Type): The Paper of 200 marks consists tests of General Awareness, English Language Quantitative Aptitude and Reasoning, with composite time of 120 minutes.

Candidates, who secure minimum marks separately for each test, will be shortlisted for Phase-II of the examination.

ii. Phase-II online Examination: The Phase-II online Examination will be conducted on December 7, only for the candidates who are shortlisted. Phase–II online examination will consist of three papers as under:

Name of Paper	Type of Paper	Time (Minutes)	Marks
Paper-I: Economic and Social Issues	Objective Type	90	100
Paper II: English (Writing Skills)	Descriptive, to be typed with the help of the keyboard	90	100
Paper-III: (Optional) Finance and Management or Economics or Statistics	Objective type	90	100

NOTE: In Paper-III, candidates have to choose one of the three subjects at the time of online application.

Interview: Candidates will be shortlisted for the interview, based on aggregate of marks obtained in Phase-II (Paper-I +Paper-II +Paper-III).. Interview will be of 50 marks. Candidate may opt for interview either in Hindi or English. Final Selection will be through merit list which will be prepared by adding marks secured by candidates in Phase-II examination and interview.

SYLLABI (Phase-II)

Paper-I - Economic and social Issues:

Growth and Development – Measurement of growth: National Income and per capita income – Poverty Alleviation and Employment Generation in India – Sustainable Development and Environmental issues. Economic Reforms in India – Industrial and Labour Policy – Monetary and Fiscal Policy – Privatization – Role of Economic Planning. Globalization – Opening up of the Indian Economy – Balance of Payments, Export-Import Policy – International Economic Institutions – IMF and World Bank – WTO – Regional Economic Co-operation. Social Structure in India – Multiculturalism – Demographic Trends – Urbanization and Migration – Gender Issues – Social Justice : Positive Discrimination in favor of the under privileged – Social Movements – Indian Political System – Human Development – Social Sectors in India, Health and Education.

Paper-II -English (Writing Skills):

The paper on English shall be framed in a manner to assess the writing skills including expression and understanding of the topic.

Paper-III -Finance and Management/ Economics/Statistics:

(A) Finance and Management:

(i) Finance

(a) Financial System

1. Regulators of Banks and Financial Institutions
2. Reserve Bank of India- functions and conduct of monetary policy, Banking System in India, Financial Institutions – SIDBI, EXIM, NABARD, NHB, etc.

(b) Financial Markets

Primary and Secondary Markets (Forex, Money, Bond, Equity,etc.), functions, instruments, recent developments.

(c) General Topics

1. Risk Management in Banking Sector
2. Basics of Derivatives: Forward, Futures and Swap
3. Changing Landscape of Banking sector
4. Recent Developments in the Financial Sector, Portfolio Investment, Public Sector Reforms, Disinvestments
5. Financial Inclusion- use of technology
6. Alternate source of finance, private and social cost-benefit, Public-Private Partnership
7. Corporate Governance in Banking Sector, role of e-governance in addressing the issues of corruption and inefficiency in the government sector.
8. The Union Budget – Direct and Indirect taxes; Non-tax sources of Revenue, GST, Thirteenth Finance Commission and GST, Finance Commission, Fiscal Policy, Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act (FRBM),
9. Inflation: Definition, trends, estimates, consequences, and remedies (control): WPI, CPI - components and trends.

(II) Management:

Management: its nature and scope; The Management Processes; Planning, Organisation, Staffing, Directing and controlling; The Role of a Manager in an Organisation. Leadership: The Tasks of a Leader; Leadership Styles; Leadership Theories; A successful Leader versus an effective Leader. Human Resource Development: Concept of HRD; Goals of HRD; Performance Appraisal – Potential appraisal and development – Feedback and Performance Counselling – Career Planning – Training and Development – Rewards – Employee Welfare. Motivation, Morale and Incentives: Theories of Motivation; How Managers Motivate; Concept of Morale; Factors determining morale; Role of Incentives in Building up Morale. Communication: Steps in the Communication Process; Communication Channels; Oral versus Written Communication; Verbal versus non-verbal Communication; upward, downward and lateral communication; Barriers to Communication, Role of Information Technology. Corporate Governance: Factors affecting Corporate Governance; Mechanisms of Corporate Governance.

The questions on this section will be basic in nature.

(B) Economics

(a) Microeconomics

1. Consumers behaviour and firms; value of resources like land, labour and capital
2. Markets-monopoly, perfect and imperfect competition
3. General Equilibrium of price and activity, economic welfare and case for regulatory / policy interventions

(b) Macroeconomics

1. Measuring national income and its components; basic macro identities and idea of macro-balance; Goods and Financial Market Equilibrium (IS-LM Framework)
2. Major macro-economic school of thoughts; Classical, Keynesian and Monetarist
3. Consumption and Investment demand; demand management policies and their effectiveness
4. Money demand and supply; monetary and fiscal policies

(c) International Economics

1. Benefit of International trade; comparative and absolute advantage; effect of International trade on resources allocation and factor price equalisation; non-conventional trade barriers, optimum currency areas and effect of customs union
2. International finance and exchange rates issues in an open economy, benefits and costs of an inter-connected financial markets; evolution of international financial architecture

(d) Public Economics

1. Public Goods, instruments of financing, government tax and non-tax revenue
2. Direct and Indirect taxes, efficiency costs of commodity taxes, income taxation, labour supply and savings, corporate taxation and corporate behaviour
3. Government expenditure policy-various components, deficit financing and its impact on the economy, government debt and crowding out of private capital

(e) India’s Economy and Development Issues

1. India’s experimentations with planned development models and the outcomes, structural issues-savings and investment, demography, urbanization, productivity, etc., issues with poverty, inequality and employment
2. Agriculture- policy and developments, manufacturing competitiveness; what is holding India back, role of public sector enterprises in the key economic sectors, India’s resilient service sector; trade, tourism, communication, ITES, etc.
3. Financial sector regulation and reforms-banking, insurance and capital market, fiscal policy and the changing priorities of government, emergence of monetary policy and its new role

 (C) Statistics:

(1) Probability: Random variables, Theorems of probability, Conditional probability, Independent events, Bayes' theorem and its application, expectation, moments, distribution functions, Binomial, Poisson, Geometric, Exponential, Negative binomial, Hyper geometric, Cauchy, Laplace, Logistic, Pareto, Log-normal, Beta and Gamma distributions, Weibull, Uniform, Bivariate normal distribution and truncated distributions, Markov’s inequality, Chebyshev’s inequality, Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, Laws of large numbers, Central limit theorems and applications.

(2) Statistical Methods: Population and sample, Measures of central tendencies Parameter and Statistic, Correlation and Regression, intra-class correlation, multiple and partial correlations, Spearman's coefficient of rank correlation, Z, chi-square, t and F statistics and their properties and applications, Large sample distributions, Variance stabilizing transformations, sin inverse, square root, logarithmic and z transformation.

(3) Linear Models: General Linear models, BLUE, method of least squares, Gauss-Markoff theorem, estimation of error variance, Simple and Multiple linear regression models, Important assumptions and treatments in case of assumption’s violation, Regression diagnostics, Analysis of variance in one, two and three-way classifications, Analysis of Covariance in one and two-way classifications.

(4) Statistical Inference: Properties of estimators, MVUE, Rao-Blackwell and Lehmann-Scheffe theorems, Cramer-Rao inequality, methods of estimation, properties of maximum likelihood and other estimators, confidence intervals. Simple and composite hypotheses, Type I and Type II errors, size and power of a test, Most Powerful and Uniformly Most Powerful tests, Neyman-Pearson lemma, Likelihood Ratio test and its properties and applications. SPRT, OC and ASN functions, Tests of goodness of fit. Parametric vs. Non-parametric Test, Frequently-used non-parametric inferential statistical methods.

(5) Multivariate Analysis: Bivariate and Multivariate normal distribution, marginal and conditional distribution, Estimation of mean vector and covariance matrix, Asymptotic properties of estimators, Sampling distribution of  and S, Mahalanobis D² and Hotelling's T² and its applications.

(6) Optimisation Techniques and Statistical Quality Control: Linear Programming, Transportation Problem, Assignment Problem, Basics of Simulation, Quality control, Process Control and Product Control, control charts, Acceptance Sampling plan, single and double sampling plans (ASN, OC, ATI, LTPD, AOQL).

(7) Sample Surveys and Design of Experiments: Simple and Stratified random sampling, ratio and regression methods of estimation, Double sampling, Systematic, Cluster, two stage and PPS sampling. Sampling and Non-sampling errors. Principles of Design of Experiments, Completely Randomized Design, Randomized Block Design, Latin Square Design, missing plot technique, 22 and 23 factorial designs, Split-Plot Design and Balanced Incomplete Block Design, Fractional factorial experiments

(8) Applied Economic Statistics: Time Series vs. cross sectional data, Multiplicative and additive models, Auto-correlation, Partial autocorrelation, Smoothing techniques, Seasonal and cyclical adjustment. Price and Quantity Index numbers, Types of index numbers and their properties. Chain and Fixed base index numbers, Cost of Living Index numbers, Wholesale Price Index, Consumer Price Index, Index of Industrial Production, Gini’s coefficient, Lorenz curves, Application of Pareto and Lognormal as income distributions.

(9) Vital Statistics: Sources of vital statistics compilation, Errors in census and registration data, Measurement of population, rate and ratio of vital events, Stationary and Stable population, Life Tables, Measures of Fertility, Mortality and Reproduction, Crude rates of natural growth, Pearl’s Vital Index.

(10) Numerical Analysis: Principles of floating point computations and rounding errors, Linear Equations factorization methods, pivoting and scaling, residual error correction method, Iterative methods, Jacobi, Gauss-Seidel methods, Newton and Newton like methods, unconstrained optimization, Lagrange interpolation techniques, Cubic Splines, Error estimates, Polynomials and least squares approximation; Integration by interpolation, adaptive quadratures and Gauss methods.

(11) Basic Computer Applications: Functional organization of computers, algorithms, basic programming concepts, Program testing and debugging, Subprograms and Subroutines, Sorting/searching methods, Database Management Systems, Software Engineering, Basic of Networking, Internet Technologies, Web and HTML, Distributed systems, Programming using C, MINITAB and FORTRAN.