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Purpose: The Indian pharmaceutical industry currently faces multiple challenges, including rising costs and slowing export growth, which in turn have limited its ability to expand presence in global canvas. Given the nature of sectoral dynamics, a pharmaceutical firm must undertake huge investments in R&D to introduce product innovation, in turn enhancing market share and sustaining profit streams. The development of novel medicines, confirmed by the granting of patent rights, provides a pharma company edge over its competitors. In addition, presence of innovator firms within the industry invigorates the sectoral value chain and raises efficiency. Hence, it is important to analyze whether granting patent rights enhances the exports of pharmaceutical products in the Indian context. Design/methodology/approach: The current study explored this question using a simultaneous-equation framework. Specifically, the authors use the methods developed by Davidson and MacKinnon (1993) and Greene (2003) to obtain heteroscedasticity-consistent estimates. The time-series properties of the data were further probed, and robust estimates were used to test the theory. Methods developed by Baltagi (1981) have been used further to refine the authors' estimations. Findings: After controlling for relevant variables, it is observed that granting of patents caused a significantly positive impact on pharmaceutical exports. Furthermore, the change in the patent administration regime had a significant impact on patent fillings, which further impacted their exportability. Compared to patents granted patents filed had a higher impact on pharmaceutical exports. Originality/value: This study attempts to apply the framework developed by Goldstein and Khan (1978) with necessary modifications to suit the context of a developing country. The application of the 3SLS method to estimate the export supply equation for pharmaceutical products is a novel approach to the research question in general and to the Indian context in particular. System autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity tests were performed to refine the results further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impact of FDI on the host economy is an important area of research. Numerous studies are found in manufacturing domain but those in services sector especially IT is relatively scarce. This paper makes an attempt to estimate the impact of FDI on Indian IT sector. Specifically, it looks at horizontal spill-over effects where the impact is through competitive pressure on domestic IT firms. Additionally, capital intensity and labour quality have also been considered as determinants of labour productivity of Indian IT firms. Data on 24 listed domestic IT firms over the period 2002 to 2016 have been used to analyze the impact of FDI on such firms. All the determinants are found to have statistically significant impact on productivity of domestic IT firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian microfinance sector has gone through ups and downs since its inception. From late 90s to 2005, the growth was phenomenal. But the Krishna crisis, Kolar crisis and finally the Andhra Pradesh crisis in consecutive years impacted the sector immensely deciding the future path it would traverse. There were significant changes in regulatory framework after these turbulent years. In this paper we attempt to examine the technical efficiency of different types of MFIs during 2008-09 to 2010-11, 2009 being the year of Andhra Crisis. The study shows that majority of the MFIs were operating below the efficient frontier. Inefficiency slightly increased during 2009-10 but significantly reduced in the subsequent year. It is seen that NGOs were dominating the NBFIs in terms of efficient units. Among the NGOs the matured ones were more efficient than NBFIs. Further random effect Tobit model shows that capital structure of MFIs is a significant determinant for overall technical efficiency. But efficiency of NGOs are more sensitive to changes in financial expense-asset ratio than NBFIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to attempt to address the effect of country of origin (COO) from three different dimensions, namely, country image (CI) effect, COO image effect and awareness level about the COO of the brand and its resultant effect on product evaluation (PrEva). Further, the brand awareness, level of involvement and the COO interaction effect on consumer PrEva has also been studied to indicate the intensity of COO impact. Due to rapid globalization and reduction in trade barriers, major emerging economics from Asia witnessed entry of cross-border brands into their markets. India, as an emerging economy, has also followed the trend. In this backdrop, the present study is proposed for a better understanding of the effect of COO on PrEva. Design/methodology/approach – The study has been conducted in India, and the mobile phone market has been taken as the hub of the study because of the presence of maximum cross-border companies in India. The study is built on existing literature on influence of COO, brand image (BI), awareness about brands, CI and product image on consumer’s evaluation of mobile phones. Seven theoretical constructs have been used to test the relationship between the COO and consumer PrEva for the selected product with the help of structural equation modeling technique. Findings – The study shows that brand awareness for the class of mobile phones selected does not affect PrEva whereas CI, which is a general perception about the country from where the product originates, significantly affects consumers’ PrEva. Results also show that COO does not act as a mediator between CI and PrEva even though COO has a significant negative direct effect on PrEva. Thus, from this study, the learning for marketers in this price segment for mobile phones in emerging markets is that consumers are more sensitive to features per price than any other influencers. So, BI and/or COO are not sufficient conditions for product success in emerging market like India. Research limitations/implications – The findings are outcomes of an empirical study conducted in mobile handset industry of India based on the sample set of urban consumers in the city of Kolkata, India. It is quite possible that there may be other issues relevant to other parts of the country. This may influence the degree of association studied herein. Hence, the results may be treated with caution in terms of the generalizations of the same to other regions and countries. The study may, in future, be done by including questions related to price sensitivity and perception about features of the mobile phone hand-sets. This may give a clearer picture about the influences of these factors on PrEva of mobile phones in emerging markets. Finally, this study should be repeated in other major emerging markets to test the general applicability of the theoretical model and the empirical results introduced in this paper. Practical implications – For the low-end mobile handset market, general country characteristics from where the product originates reduce the importance of specific product attributes in evaluating the product. We may further conclude from the present study that the country’s overall image can be an effective tool to influence the consumer PrEva process. To be competitive in an emerging country like India, multinational firms should promote the overall country’s image to cement relationship with target consumers. Originality/value – Moreover, Ahmed and d’Astous (1996) viewed that several empirical research have independently focused on the impact of COO on the country, product or brand level, but there is lack of an integrated approach in this regard to capture different propensity of effects of COO at different levels. To our knowledge, it is one of the first attempts to analyze consumers’ PrEva of mobile phones in an emerging market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]