IMF Working Papers

Productivity Trends in India's Manufacturing Sectors in the Last Two Decades

By Bulent Unel

January 1, 2003

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Bulent Unel. Productivity Trends in India's Manufacturing Sectors in the Last Two Decades, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2003) accessed November 5, 2024
Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

Starting in the late 1970s, the Indian authorities implemented a series of reforms aimed at exposing the economy to greater competition and at liberalizing key aspects of economic activity. This paper investigates productivity trends in India's (registered) manufacturing sectors during the 1980s and 1990s. The main findings of the paper are (i) labor and total factor productivity (TFP) growth in total manufacturing and many of the component sectors since 1980 were markedly higher than that in the preceding two decades, although the extent of the acceleration in TFP growth depends critically on the underlying assumptions about factor elasticities and the assumed structure of the production function; (ii) productivity growth for total manufacturing as well as for many subsectors picked up further after the 1991 reforms; and (iii) classification of the best performing sectors and the weakest performing sectors, based on comparative TFP, remains robust to changes in underlying assumptions.

Subject: Capital productivity, Economic sectors, Labor productivity, Manufacturing, Production, Productivity, Total factor productivity

Keywords: Capital productivity, Factor productivity, Growth rate, Labor productivity, Manufacturing, Productivity, Productivity analysis, Productivity change, Productivity literature, Productivity performance, Productivity trend, TFP contribution, Total factor productivity, WP

Publication Details

  • Pages:

    25

  • Volume:

    ---

  • DOI:

    ---

  • Issue:

    ---

  • Series:

    Working Paper No. 2003/022

  • Stock No:

    WPIEA0222003

  • ISBN:

    9781451843996

  • ISSN:

    1018-5941