The paper provides an explanation of recent empirical evidence on fragmentation and the expansion of the informal sector in India. We argue that as the prospect of getting a better price in the international market increases, the producers in the formal sector act more like merchants and...

Is the informal sector in India a means of exploitation or a means of accumulation? One view takes the informal sector to be a site for primitive capital accumulation, with underpaid workers working in abysmal conditions. Another view takes the informal sector to be the venue for economic...

The study investigates how market imperfections distort the impact of trade reform on productivity growth. As the trade expands it influences both product and factor prices and if the distortions arise due to these market imperfections are not eliminated, the usual estimate of total factor...

The paper presents an empirical investigation into alternative forms of organisation of rural industries and their dynamics in the post-reform period of India by means of a field survey carried out in the state of West Bengal in 2001--02. The selected industries (handloom, brassware, hornware,...

This paper makes an attempt to estimate the index of informal sector employment that can be attributed to the supply-push phenomenon. Factors explaining the inter-state variations in this index include the industrial-informal sector wage gap, revenue expenditure and development expenditure...

We express a doubt on the conventional wisdom namely, of a positive relationship between wage and productivity, of a formal sector firm in a developing economy where the firm can either go for subcontracting to the informal sector to minimize wage cost along with apprehension of extra-legal cost...

This paper makes an attempt to estimate the index of informal sector employment which can be attributed to the supply-push phenomenon. Factors which explain the inter-state variations include the industrial-informal sector wage gap, revenue expenditure, and development expenditure incurred by...

As a country progressively engages in international trade, its factors of production will enter increasingly into the export sector, where their return is higher, compared to the import competing sector. At the regional level too those states, which can attune their production structure to...

Recent papers, discussing the impact of economic reform in India, argue that the positive effect of reform is more significant in states, which are not ‘labor friendly’. Also labor market reforms seem to be a pre-condition for success of liberal policies as far as their impact on poverty is...