Why are we rich and others poor? What is preventing the less-developed countries from catching up with the more developed? How did we become rich? Underlying these questions are more fundamental ones: What is the nature of economic progress? What are its causes? I seek the answers to these...

Historically, the Indian textiles and clothing industry has comparative advantage in production and exports which could not be fully utilized because of quantitative restrictions imposed by her major export markets such as USA and European Union. It was therefore, envisaged that with the...

The textiles and clothing sector involves most unskilled labour-intensive activities, requires minimal training but offers the most employment opportunities as compared to any other manufacturing sector. In the area of international trade, exports from this sector have played a very crucial role...

China and India are the two major gainers from the removal of quotas on textiles and clothing with phasing out of Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) with effect from Jan. 1, 2005. However, to reap the maximum benefits of the new quota free regime and to sustain the growth in this sector it is...

The technical textiles domain with its classifications into twelve broad segments leaves a great space where Indian industry has the large scope to deliver good results. It can also set an example in the times of turbulences that may occur anytime in today's changing business environment. The...

With the America Invents Act of 2011, the U.S. changed its patent-issuing rule from first-to-invent to first-to-file, the international norm. We investigate the effect of such a policy change in a two-country model of R&D competition for two sequential (basic and final) inventions. We find that...

This paper examines micro-level channels of how financial development can affect macroeconomic outcomes like the level of income and export intensity. We investigate theoretically and empirically how financial constraints affect a firm's innovation and export activities, using unique firm survey...

I summarize the main results and policy insights from the 2011 EIB Conference on “Productivity and Long-Term Growth Potential in Europe.” Europe's need for productivity growth has become more pressing against the backdrop of huge government debt and a beginning slowdown in labour supply. The...

In this paper, we investigate how changes in the skill mix of local labor supply are absorbed by the economy. We distinguish between three adjustment mechanisms: through factor prices, through an expansion in the size of those production units that use the more abundant skill group more...