IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ijlaec/v60y2017i2d10.1007_s41027-017-0097-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Labour laws and innovation: Evidence from Indian states

Author

Listed:
  • Saibal Ghosh

    (Reserve Bank of India)

Abstract

The importance of labour regulation in influencing innovative activity has attracted significant attention in the literature. What has not been adequately explored is the role played by different categories of such laws. In this context, employing state-level data for India during 1992–2010, we investigate how political federalism interacts with labour laws to influence innovative activity. Our findings suggest that although certain labour laws foster innovation, its complementarities with political federalism end up dampening innovation. These results call into question the widely held view of the innovation-enhancing effects of labour laws and suggest that the hitherto unaddressed political channel might have an important role to play in this regard.

Suggested Citation

  • Saibal Ghosh, 2017. "Labour laws and innovation: Evidence from Indian states," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 60(2), pages 175-190, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ijlaec:v:60:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s41027-017-0097-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s41027-017-0097-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41027-017-0097-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s41027-017-0097-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrei Shleifer, 1998. "State versus Private Ownership," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 133-150, Fall.
    2. Philippe Aghion & Diego Comin & Peter Howitt & Isabel Tecu, 2016. "When Does Domestic Savings Matter for Economic Growth?," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(3), pages 381-407, August.
    3. James J. Heckman & Carmen Pagés, 2004. "Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number heck04-1, March.
    4. Bhalotra, Sonia R, 1998. "The Puzzle of Jobless Growth in Indian Manufacturing," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 60(1), pages 5-32, February.
    5. Gupta,Poonam & Hasan, Rana & Kumar, Utsav, 2009. "Big Reforms but Small Payoffs: Explaining the Weak Record of Growth in Indian Manufacturing," India Policy Forum, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 5(1), pages 59-123.
    6. Robert G. King & Ross Levine, 1993. "Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might Be Right," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 717-737.
    7. Cornaggia, Jess & Mao, Yifei & Tian, Xuan & Wolfe, Brian, 2015. "Does banking competition affect innovation?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 189-209.
    8. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249, April.
    9. Viral V. Acharya & Ramin P. Baghai & Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian, 2013. "Labor Laws and Innovation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 997-1037.
    10. Benfratello, Luigi & Schiantarelli, Fabio & Sembenelli, Alessandro, 2008. "Banks and innovation: Microeconometric evidence on Italian firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 197-217, November.
    11. Jean Arcand & Enrico Berkes & Ugo Panizza, 2015. "Too much finance?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 105-148, June.
    12. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt, 2009. "The Economics of Growth," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262012634, December.
    13. Ministry of Finance,, 2015. "Economic Survey 2014-15," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199460182.
    14. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2004. "Can Labor Regulation Hinder Economic Performance? Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 91-134.
    15. Saibal Ghosh, 2013. "The economics and politics of output volatility: evidence from Indian states," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 110-134, January.
    16. Yana van der Meulen Rodgers & Nidhiya Menon, 2013. "Labor Regulations and Job Quality: Evidence from India," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 66(4), pages 933-957, July.
    17. Fallon, Peter R. & Lucas, Robert E. B., 1993. "Job security regulations and the dynamic demand for industrial labor in India and Zimbabwe," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 241-275, April.
    18. Amartya Lahiri & Kei-Mu Yi, 2009. "A Tale of Two States: Maharashtra and West Bengal," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(3), pages 523-542, July.
    19. Saha, Bibhas & Sen, Kunal & Maiti, Dibyendu, 2013. "Trade openness, labour institutions and flexibilisation: Theory and evidence from India," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 180-195.
    20. Arulampalam, Wiji & Dasgupta, Sugato & Dhillon, Amrita & Dutta, Bhaskar, 2009. "Electoral goals and center-state transfers: A theoretical model and empirical evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 103-119, January.
    21. -, 2009. "Economic growth in the Caribbean," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38668, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    22. Rachel Griffith & Gareth Macartney, 2014. "Employment Protection Legislation, Multinational Firms, and Innovation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(1), pages 135-150, March.
    23. Ahsan, Ahmad & Pagés, Carmen, 2009. "Are all labor regulations equal? Evidence from Indian manufacturing," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 62-75, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ghosh Saibal, 2017. "Political Federalism and Innovation: Are de jure Labor Regulations Absolute?," Asian Journal of Law and Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(3), pages 1-15, December.
    2. Betcherman, Gordon, 2014. "Labor market regulations : what do we know about their impacts in developing countries ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6819, The World Bank.
    3. Aditya Bhattacharjea, 2019. "Labour Market Flexibility in Indian Industry A Critical Survey of the Literature," Working papers 296, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    4. Kais Mtar & Walid Belazreg, 2021. "Causal Nexus Between Innovation, Financial Development, and Economic Growth: the Case of OECD Countries," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 12(1), pages 310-341, March.
    5. Simontini Das, 2018. "Does Casualization Increase the Job Opportunity to the Workers or Impoverish Them? An Evidence from Indian-Organized Manufacturing Sector," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 19(1), pages 86-107, March.
    6. Giebel, Marek & Kraft, Kornelius, 2017. "External financing constraints and firm's innovative activities during the financial crisis," ZEW Discussion Papers 17-064, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Veeramani, Choorikkad & Banerjee, Purna, 2022. "Exchange rate fluctuations, labour laws, and gender differences in job flows: Analysis of manufacturing industries across Indian states," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    8. Chaurey, Ritam, 2015. "Labor regulations and contract labor use: Evidence from Indian firms," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 224-232.
    9. Diti Goswami & Sourabh Bikas Paul, 2020. "Labor Reforms in Rajasthan: A boon or a bane?," Papers 2012.01016, arXiv.org.
    10. Nihar Shembavnekar, 2015. "Tariff Liberalisation, Labour Market Flexibility and Employment: Evidence from India," Working Paper Series 8115, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    11. Sonja Fagernäs, 2010. "Labor Law, Judicial Efficiency, and Informal Employment in India," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(2), pages 282-321, June.
    12. Djankov, Simeon & Ramalho, Rita, 2009. "Employment laws in developing countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 3-13, March.
    13. Nihar Shembavnekar, 2019. "Economic Reforms, Labour Markets and Formal Sector Employment: Evidence from India," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-42, April.
    14. Sofi Irfan Ahmad & Sharma Pritee, 2015. "Labour Laws and Informalisation of Employment: Panel Evidences from Indian Formal Manufacturing Sector," Asian Journal of Law and Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 65-84, April.
    15. Kais Mtar & Walid Belazreg, 2023. "On the nexus of innovation, trade openness, financial development and economic growth in European countries: New perspective from a GMM panel VAR approach," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 766-791, January.
    16. O uzhan Yilmaz, 2016. "Analysis of the Relationships between Financial Development and Economic Growth through Romer's Expanding Variety of Products Model: The Case of Turkey," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 6(3), pages 1155-1164.
    17. Ghosh, Saibal, 2016. "Does mobile telephony spur growth? Evidence from Indian states," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 1020-1031.
    18. Radhicka Kapoor & P. P. Krishnapriya, 2019. "Explaining the contractualisation of India’s workforce," Working Papers id:12998, eSocialSciences.
    19. Daniel Schwab, 2019. "Labor protection laws and the drain on productivity: Evidence from India," Working Papers 1906, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    20. Bhaskar Jyoti Neog & Bimal Kishore Sahoo, 2020. "Job Reallocation Dynamics in India: Evidence from Large Manufacturing Plants," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(4), pages 934-959, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Innovation; EPL; Dispute settlement; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • P52 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Studies of Particular Economies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:ijlaec:v:60:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s41027-017-0097-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.