IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/adbewp/0213.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Distribution of Firm Size in India: What Can Survey Data Tell Us?

Author

Listed:
  • Hasan, Rana

    (Asian Development Bank)

  • L. Jandoc, Karl Robert

    (Asian Development Bank)

Abstract

We use establishment-level data from Indian manufacturing to describe the distribution of firm size in terms of employment, and discuss implications for public policy. A unique feature of our analysis is the use of nationally representative establishment-level data from both the registered (formal) and unregistered (informal) components of the Indian manufacturing sector. We also examine how the distribution of firm size varies across states coded by recent literature as having either flexible or inflexible labor regulations. We find little difference in the size distribution of firms between states believed to have flexible labor regulations versus those with inflexible labor regulations. However, restricting attention to labor-intensive industries, we find a greater prevalence of larger-sized firms in states with flexible labor regulations. This suggests that labor regulations may indeed be affecting firm size adversely. More generally, our paper serves to illustrate the point that establishment-level survey data represent a very rich source for work on public policy issues.

Suggested Citation

  • Hasan, Rana & L. Jandoc, Karl Robert, 2010. "The Distribution of Firm Size in India: What Can Survey Data Tell Us?," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 213, Asian Development Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:adbewp:0213
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. World Bank, 2012. "World Development Report 2013
      [Informe anual del Banco Mundial de 2013 : poner fin a la pobreza extrema, promover la prosperidad compartida - informe principal]      ," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 11843, August.
    2. Ejaz Ghani & Arti Grover Goswami & William R. Kerr, 2016. "Highway to Success: The Impact of the Golden Quadrilateral Project for the Location and Performance of Indian Manufacturing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(591), pages 317-357, March.
    3. Ghani, Ejaz & Kerr, William R. & O'Connell, Stephen D., 2013. "The exceptional persistence of India's unorganized sector," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6454, The World Bank.
    4. Ghani, Ejaz & Kerr, William R. & O'Connell, Stephen D., 2013. "Female business ownership and informal sector persistence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6612, The World Bank.
    5. Klaus Desmet & Ejaz Ghani & Stephen O'Connell & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2015. "The Spatial Development Of India," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 10-30, January.
    6. Ghani, Ejaz & Goswami, Arti Grover & Kerr, William R., 2013. "Highway to success in India : the impact of the golden quadrilateral project for the location and performance of manufacturing," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6320, The World Bank.
    7. Meghana Ayyagari & Asli Demirguc-Kunt & Vojislav Maksimovic, 2017. "What Determines Entrepreneurial Outcomes in Emerging Markets? The Role of Initial Conditions," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(7), pages 2478-2522.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Size Distribution of Firms; Labor Regulations; India;

    JEL classification:

    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    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:ris:adbewp:0213. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Maria Susan M. Torres). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/eradbph.html .

    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.

    We have no references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.