This paper exploits India's rapid, comprehensive, and externally imposed trade reform to establish a causal link between changes in tariffs and firm productivity. Pro-competitive forces, resulting from lower tariffs on final goods, as well as access to better inputs, due to lower input tariffs, both appear to have increased firm-level productivity, with input tariffs having a larger impact. The effect was strongest in import-competing industries and industries not subject to excessive domestic regulation. While we find no evidence of a differential impact according to state-level characteristics, we observe complementarities between trade liberalization and additional industrial policy reforms.

Trade Liberalization and New Imported Inputs by Pinelopi Goldberg, Amit Khandelwal, Nina Pavcnik and Petia Topalova. Published in volume 99, issue 2, pages 494-500 of American Economic Review, May 2009

We exploit random assignment of gender quotas for leadership positions on Indian village councils to show that prior exposure to a female leader is associated with electoral gains for women. After ten years of quotas, women are more likely to stand for, and win, elected positions in councils required to have a female chief councilor in the previous two elections. We provide experimental and survey evidence on one channel of influence—changes in voter attitudes. Prior exposure to a female chief councilor improves perceptions of female leader effectiveness and weakens stereotypes about gender roles in the public and domestic spheres.

This paper provides evidence on the patterns of multiproduct firm production in a large developing country, India, during a period that spans market reforms. In the cross-section, multiproduct firms in India look remarkably similar to their U.S. counterparts. The time-series patterns, however, exhibit important differences. In contrast to evidence from the United States, product churning, particularly product rationalization, is far less common in India. We find no link between product rationalization and output tariff declines following India's 1991 trade liberalization. The lack of “creative destruction” is consistent with the role of industrial regulation in preventing an efficient allocation of resources.