Subnational Export Performance and Determinants: Evidence from Two Indian States

Traditionally, the export performance of the economies were analysed taking individual countries as the locational unit, which were not able to explain the subnational, regional or spatial disparities within the geographically vast countries like India, because huge amount of heterogeneity exist among different states in terms of economic development, infrastructure, skill, knowledge and subnational policies. The analysis of the two selected states, namely Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu indicates that their differential performance in manufacturing exports can be related to their contrasting heterogeneity in terms of above spatial factors. Findings also suggest that firms’ exporting in these two states are shaped by a number of firm level parameters such as firm age, firm size, R&D intensity, foreign and business group affiliation, etc.