Impact of Foreign Direct Investments on Industrial Productivity: A Subnational Study of India

The paper uses unique aggregate industry-level dataset at subnational level from India to measure the effects of foreign investments on the productivity of domestic firms. Using pooled regression analysis with fixed effects for the period 2002 – 2005, we find that: (a) foreign investments have significant positive effect on productivity of domestic firms. However, the coefficient values of FDI are smaller, suggesting that the positive effects are marginal. (b) When FDI inflows are controlled for in the cross-section productivity regression, the relationship between the share of foreign technical collaborations and productivity of domestic firms increases significantly. This supports the argument that foreign technical collaborations increase productivity in part through its effect on the FDI inflows. (c) Another interesting finding is that there is no strong evidence to show that this positive effect is state-heterogeneous. In turn, we find partial effects of FDI are marginally higher in non-industrial states. Thus, we suggest that domestic firms can reap rich dividends if the FDI inflows are evenly distributed across the regions, particularly concentrating the efforts on attracting FDI into non-industrial states.