IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ind/igiwpp/2016-007.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Size dependent tax incentives, threshold effects and horizontal subcontracting in Indian manufacturing: Evidence from factory and firm-level panel data sets

Author

Listed:
  • K.V. Ramaswamy

    (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research)

Abstract

India's industrial protection and promotion policies for small-scale enterprises have figured prominently in the literature on industrialization policies in developing countries. These size dependent tax incentives could encourage fragmentation of production and prevent natural up-scaling of firm sizes. The author presents a new empirical application of the idea of threshold burden of tax incentives in India. The study is based on a large unbalanced panel of manufacturing factories in the formal sector spanning the period 1999-2008 and a panel of manufacturing companies covering the period 1990-2010. Average subcontracting intensity was found to be significantly higher in manufacturing factories and firms with sales turnover below the ceiling level set by the tax rules. Econometric tests based on Fixed Effect models supported the hypothesis that firms take advantage of tax incentives by staying below the threshold sales turnover. This is consistent with the idea of threshold effects of size dependent tax incentives.

Suggested Citation

  • K.V. Ramaswamy, 2016. "Size dependent tax incentives, threshold effects and horizontal subcontracting in Indian manufacturing: Evidence from factory and firm-level panel data sets," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2016-007, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    • Handle: RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2016-007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.igidr.ac.in/pdf/publication/WP-2016-007.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James R. Tybout, 2000. "Manufacturing Firms in Developing Countries: How Well Do They Do, and Why?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 11-44, March.
    2. Mills, David E & Schumann, Laurence, 1985. "Industry Structure with Fluctuating Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 758-767, September.
    3. Laura Alfaro & Anusha Chari, 2014. "Deregulation, Misallocation, and Size: Evidence from India," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(4), pages 897-936.
    4. Levy, Brian, 1993. "Obstacles to Developing Indigenous Small and Medium Enterprises: An Empirical Assessment," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 7(1), pages 65-83, January.
    5. Onji, Kazuki, 2009. "The response of firms to eligibility thresholds: Evidence from the Japanese value-added tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 766-775, June.
    6. Petia Topalova & Amit Khandelwal, 2011. "Trade Liberalization and Firm Productivity: The Case of India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 995-1009, August.
    7. Moreno-Monroy, Ana Isabel & Pieters, Janneke & Erumban, Abdul Azeez, 2012. "Subcontracting and the Size and Composition of the Informal Sector: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing," IZA Discussion Papers 6785, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dipankar Gupta, 2020. "Think “Big”: Strategizing Post-coronial Revival in India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(1), pages 145-150, October.
    2. Dipankar Gupta, 2019. "Against Thresholds: Raising Capacity and Formalizing the Economy," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 62(1), pages 15-30, March.

    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. K. V. Ramaswamy, 2021. "Do Size-dependent Tax Incentives Discourage Plant Size Expansion? Evidence from Panel Data in Indian Manufacturing," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 15(4), pages 395-417, November.
    2. Mary Amiti & Jozef Konings, 2007. "Trade Liberalization, Intermediate Inputs, and Productivity: Evidence from Indonesia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1611-1638, December.
    3. Natalie Chun & Soohyung Lee, 2015. "Bonus compensation and productivity: evidence from Indian manufacturing plant-level data," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 47-58, February.
    4. Aysa Ipek Erdogan, 2023. "Drivers of SME Growth: Quantile Regression Evidence From Developing Countries," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, March.
    5. Nataraj, Shanthi, 2011. "The impact of trade liberalization on productivity: Evidence from India's formal and informal manufacturing sectors," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 292-301.
    6. Maria Bas & Ivan Ledezma, 2015. "Trade Liberalization and Heterogeneous Technology Investments," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 738-781, September.
    7. Eslava, Marcela & Haltiwanger, John C. & Kugler, Adriana & Kugler, Maurice, 2009. "Trade Reforms and Market Selection: Evidence from Manufacturing Plants in Colombia," IZA Discussion Papers 4256, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Ravi Kanbur & Michael Keen, 2014. "Thresholds, informality, and partitions of compliance," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(4), pages 536-559, August.
    9. Laura Alfaro & Anusha Chari, 2009. "India Transformed? Insights from the Firm Level 1988-2005," Harvard Business School Working Papers 10-030, Harvard Business School.
    10. Iacovone, Leonardo, 2012. "The better you are the stronger it makes you: Evidence on the asymmetric impact of liberalization," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 474-485.
    11. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "The Missing "Missing Middle"," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 89-108, Summer.
    12. Aditya Bhattacharjea, 2022. "Industrial policy in India since independence," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 565-598, December.
    13. Marcela Eslava & John Haltiwanger & Adriana Kugler & Maurice Kugler, 2013. "Trade and Market Selection: Evidence from Manufacturing Plants in Colombia," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 135-158, January.
    14. Kathuria, Vinish & Rajesh Raj, S.N. & Sen, Kunal, 2013. "The effects of economic reforms on manufacturing dualism: Evidence from India," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 1240-1262.
    15. Antonio Navas-Ruiz & Davide Sala, 2007. "Technology Adoption and the Selection Effect of Trade," Economics Working Papers ECO2007/58, European University Institute.
    16. Robert T. Jensen & Nolan H. Miller, 2018. "Market Integration, Demand and the Growth of Firms: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in India," Working Papers id:12824, eSocialSciences.
    17. R. Rijesh, 2021. "Liberalization, Import of Capital Goods, and Industrial Exports: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing Sectors," Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, Emerging Markets Forum, vol. 13(1), pages 81-103, January.
    18. R. Rijesh, 2019. "International Trade and Productivity Growth in Indian Industry: Evidence from the Organized Manufacturing Sector," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 14(1), pages 1-39, April.
    19. Prabal De & Priya Nagaraj, 2014. "Productivity and firm size in India," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 891-907, April.
    20. Haya Hoja & Pei Yu, 2022. "Developing and Enhancing the Competitiveness of the Palestinian National Product: The Leather and Footwear Sector—Analysis and Evaluation of Government Interventions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-29, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firm Size; Threshold Effects; Regulations; manufacturing and small-scale enterprises;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

    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:ind:igiwpp:2016-007. 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: Shamprasad M. Pujar (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/igidrin.html .

    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.