Andhra Pradesh Manufacturing Industry in the Era of Globalization: A Cobb-Douglas Production Function Analysis

The main objective of the paper is to investigate which factors influenced the output growth—fixed capital or workers? The paper analyzes the data by calculating Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) for different years and different variables like workers, fixed capital and output collected for 62 manufacturing industries from the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) in Andhra Pradesh. In general, Cobb-Douglas production function has been used in two variables framework and value added has been considered as output and labor and capital as inputs. The Cobb-Douglas production function analysis through panel data analysis was done. The study followed the 1998-99, National Industrial Classification (NIC). The main findings of the study are, firstly, not all industries influenced the output growth. Secondly, most of the industries (20 industries) did not provide employment opportunities. Thirdly, a few (18) manufacturing industries’ fixed capital CAGR has negatively declined. Fourthly, a few (12) manufacturing industries’ output CAGR has negatively declined. And, finally only manufacture of machinery and equipment industry’s workers per factory employed average declined, and rest of the industries’ average number of workers per factory employed increased.