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Do business groups help or hinder technological progress in emerging markets? Evidence from India

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  • Sumon K. Bhaumik
  • Ying Zhou

Abstract

Business groups, which are ubiquitous in emerging market economies, balance the advantages of characteristics such as internal capital markets with the disadvantages such as inefficient internal distribution of resources and suppression of technological and other forms of innovativeness. In this paper, we examine, in the Indian context, whether business group affiliation provides an advantage over unaffiliated (or private independent) firms with respect to technological progress, which lies at the heart of wider economic growth and prosperity. Our results suggest that while business group affiliation did provide an advantage over private independent firms at the start of the sample period (2000), this advantage was more than offset by the turn of the century. We discuss the implications of our results for economic growth rates in emerging market economies.

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  • Sumon K. Bhaumik & Ying Zhou, 2014. "Do business groups help or hinder technological progress in emerging markets? Evidence from India," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp1066, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    • Handle: RePEc:wdi:papers:2014-1066
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    Cited by:

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    2. Athreye, Suma & Saeed, Abubakr & Baloch, Muhammad Saad, 2021. "Financial crisis of 2008 and outward foreign investments from China and India," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 56(3).
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business groups; Technological progress; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • L21 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Business Objectives of the Firm
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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