Exporting, access of foreign technology, and firms’ performance: Searching the link in Indian manufacturing

This study tests the impact of export and foreign technology on the indicators of firm’s performance for a sample of Indian manufacturing firms. To provide new insights into the debate over the linkage among export, technology, and performance, we employ several important performance indicators of firms, such as labor productivity, total factor productivity, product and process innovation, wage, size, and capacity utilization. For this study, we utilize a sample of firms from a recent Enterprise Surveys data of the World Bank on Indian manufacturing. The results of the analysis indicate that exporters are more productive and innovative. They are also large and utilize the capacity in a better way. The results further indicate that export leads to substantial performance gain for Indian firms. Similar results are also estimated for the effects of the use of foreign technology in the production process. Our findings also suggest that exporting products to the developed world have a significant effect on performance and further indicate that single product firms are more benefited from export and technology transfer than multi-product firms. It is also found that firms with more productivity decide to export their products; however, technology transfer is not a significant factor in making decisions about export or enhancing export-intensity. Overall, our analysis supports the argument that research and development (R&D) in the developed countries is an important source of technology for developing countries, and this takes place through export as well as direct technology transfer.