IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ash/wpaper/42.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

India’s Export-Led Growth: Exemplar and Exception

Author

Listed:
  • Arvind Subramanian

    (Department of Economics, Ashoka University)

  • Shoumitro Chatterjee

    (Pennsylvania State University)

Abstract

Two new facts motivate this long-run assessment of India’s exports and growth. First, since the early 1990s, India has posted the world’s third-highest growth rate in overall and manufacturing exports, which has been critical to India’s overall growth performance. Contrary to perception, India has been an exemplar of the export-led growth model. Second, this aggregate performance has, however, co-existed with an underperformance in unskilled manufacturing exports. This has resulted in at least $140 billion in “missing†unskilled economic activity annually. A cross-country gravity perspective suggests that India is a “normal†exporter and importer of goods and services, but an under-exporter of manufacturing goods. Going forward, India’s unusual, endowment-defying specialization could limit export dynamism. Having not traversed them Lewis curve for unskilled manufacturing, the curve for skilled exports is threatening to turn up as skilled labor becomes scarce.

Suggested Citation

  • Arvind Subramanian & Shoumitro Chatterjee, 2020. "India’s Export-Led Growth: Exemplar and Exception," Working Papers 42, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ash:wpaper:42
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dp.ashoka.edu.in/ash/wpaper/paper42_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Krugman, Paul, 1980. "Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(5), pages 950-959, December.
    2. David H. Romer & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1999. "Does Trade Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 379-399, June.
    3. Ricardo Hausmann & Jason Hwang & Dani Rodrik, 2007. "What you export matters," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-25, March.
    4. Jones, Ronald W. & Peter Neary, J., 1984. "The positive theory of international trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: R. W. Jones & P. B. Kenen (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 1-62, Elsevier.
    5. Amrit Amirapu & Arvind Subramanian, 2015. "Manufacturing or Services? An Indian Illustration of a Development Dilemma," Working Papers id:7521, eSocialSciences.
    6. Dani Rodrik & Arvind Subramanian, 2005. "From "Hindu Growth" to Productivity Surge: The Mystery of the Indian Growth Transition," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 52(2), pages 193-228, September.
    7. Nicholas R. Lardy, 2014. "Markets over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 6932, October.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    9. Nathan Nunn & Diego Puga, 2012. "Ruggedness: The Blessing of Bad Geography in Africa," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 20-36, February.
    10. World Bank, 2020. "World Development Report 2020," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 32437, December.
    11. Treb Allen & David Atkin, 2022. "Volatility and the Gains From Trade," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(5), pages 2053-2092, September.
    12. Montek S. Ahluwalia, 2002. "Economic Reforms in India Since 1991: Has Gradualism Worked?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 67-88, Summer.
    13. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum, 2002. "Technology, Geography, and Trade," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(5), pages 1741-1779, September.
    14. Thomas Chaney, 2008. "Distorted Gravity: The Intensive and Extensive Margins of International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1707-1721, September.
    15. Justin R. Pierce & Peter K. Schott, 2009. "A Concordance Between Ten-Digit U.S. Harmonized System Codes and SIC/NAICS Product Classes and Industries," NBER Working Papers 15548, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Peter K. Schott, 2004. "Across-Product Versus Within-Product Specialization in International Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 647-678.
    17. Paul Krugman, 1995. "Growing World Trade: Causes and Consequences," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 327-377.
    18. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6apm7lruv088iagm4rv2c33jtg is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Thomas Chaney, 2008. "Distorted Gravity: The Intensive and Extensive Margins of International Trade," Post-Print hal-03579844, HAL.
    20. Amrit Amirapu and Arvind Subramanian, 2015. "Manufacturing or Services? An Indian Illustration of a Development Dilemma - Working Paper 409," Working Papers 409, Center for Global Development.
    21. Pinelopi K. Goldberg & Tristan Reed, 2020. "Demand-Side Constraints in Development: The Role of Market Size, Trade, and (In)Equality," NBER Working Papers 27286, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Goldberg,Pinelopi Koujianou & Reed,Tristan, 2020. "Income Distribution, International Integration and Sustained Poverty Reduction," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9342, The World Bank.
    23. T. N. Srinivasan & Suresh D. Tendulkar, 2003. "Reintegrating India with the World Economy," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 98, October.
    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. Esposito, Federico, 2022. "Demand risk and diversification through international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    2. Daruich, Diego & Easterly, William & Reshef, Ariell, 2019. "The surprising instability of export specializations," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 36-65.
    3. Esposito, Federico, 2019. "Demand Risk and Diversification through Trade," MPRA Paper 99875, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Stephen J. Redding & David E. Weinstein, 2017. "Aggregating from Micro to Macro Patterns of Trade," NBER Working Papers 24051, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2018. "Global Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(2), pages 565-619, June.
    6. Anderson, James E. & Yotov, Yoto V., 2020. "Short run gravity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    7. Costinot, Arnaud & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, 2014. "Trade Theory with Numbers: Quantifying the Consequences of Globalization," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 197-261, Elsevier.
    8. Ahmad Lashkaripour, 2015. "Beyond Gravity: the Composition of Multilateral Trade Flows," CAEPR Working Papers 2015-006, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
    9. Stephen J. Redding & David E. Weinstein, 2018. "Accounting for Trade Patterns," Working Papers 2018-10, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    10. Hillberry, Russell & Hummels, David, 2013. "Trade Elasticity Parameters for a Computable General Equilibrium Model," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 1213-1269, Elsevier.
    11. Güzin Bayar, 2018. "Estimating export equations: a survey of the literature," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 629-672, March.
    12. Yoto V. Yotov, 2022. "On the role of domestic trade flows for estimating the gravity model of trade," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(3), pages 526-540, July.
    13. Alessandra Bonfiglioli & Rosario Crinò & Gino Gancia, 2018. "Firms and Economic Performance: A view from Trade," Working Papers 1034, Barcelona School of Economics.
    14. Markus Brueckner & Ngo Van Long & Joaquin L. Vespignani, 2020. "Non-Gravity Trade," Globalization Institute Working Papers 388, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    15. Thibault Fally & James Sayre, 2018. "Commodity Trade Matters," 2018 Meeting Papers 172, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Stefano Bolatto & Massimo Sbracia, 2016. "Deconstructing the Gains from Trade: Selection of Industries vs Reallocation of Workers," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 344-363, May.
    17. Finicelli, Andrea & Pagano, Patrizio & Sbracia, Massimo, 2013. "Ricardian selection," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 96-109.
    18. Bolatto, Stefano & Moramarco, Graziano, 2023. "Gains from trade and their quantification: Does sectoral disaggregation matter?," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 44-68.
    19. Joseph S. Shapiro & Reed Walker, 2018. "Why Is Pollution from US Manufacturing Declining? The Roles of Environmental Regulation, Productivity, and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3814-3854, December.
    20. Katharina Längle, 2020. "Upgrading of Exports: Does the Integration into Trade Agreements Pave the Way to Product Upgrading?," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 20006, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic Development;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ash:wpaper:42. 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: Ashoka University (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ashoka.edu.in .

    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.