The paper begins with a discussion of Indian labour law and the increasing use of "contract labour" in Indian formal manufacturing. We question the widespread perception that employment of contract labour provides flexibility to employers in terms of adjustment in response to demand and...

Faced with easier access to foreign technology and imported capital goods, firms in India's organised manufacturing sector adopted advanced techniques of production leading to increasing automation and a rise in the capital intensity of production. This has raised much concern about the ability...

The rising trade in intermediate goods accounts for almost two-thirds of world’s trade (MGI, 2019). India's export share for intermediate goods in its total exports has increased from 31.18% in 2011 to 32.52% in 2016. Moreover, India's overall share in world merchandise exports has itself...

Indian manufacturers have invested significantly in technology upgradations since the economy opened up to foreign trade and technology in the mid-1980s. In this paper, we examine the impact of technology on employment and skill demand within the Indian manufacturing sector. Estimating a dynamic...

The factors responsible for the lacklustre performance India's manufacturing are well identified in contemporary literature. The important ones are absence of world class infrastructure, complex system of internal taxation, an unpredictable taxation environment, and regulations relating to land...

One particularly significant piece of labour legislation in India is the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 (CLA,1970), which regulates labour hired by firms through the offices of a labour contractor - such labour being referred to as 'contract' labour in India. This paper...

After following inward oriented economic policies for nearly four decades, India opened up to international trade in the early 1990s. Since then, the trade integration of the Indian economy in general and the manufacturing sector in particular has increased phenomenally. Against this backdrop,...

This paper uses the data envelopment analysis (DEA) based Malmquist productivity index to estimate total factor productivity growth (TFPG), technical change, and efficiency change for a panel of firms during the period 1991 to 2001 in 26 Indian manufacturing industries. The paper then analyses...