Liberalisation, Concentration and Diversification: Business Groups in India, 2000-2020

Simon Commander (), Saul Estrin (), Naveen Thomas and Varun Lingineni ()
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Simon Commander: IE Business School, Altura Partners
Saul Estrin: London School of Economics
Varun Lingineni: London School of Economics

No 17428, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We analyse changes in market structure in India between 2000 and 2020 using a rich dataset at high levels of disaggregation. We examine the extent to which business groups – notably family-owned groups – have maintained dominant market positions in the Indian economy. We focus on two key dimensions. The first is the extent of concentration in markets and market shares by industry. The second concerns the dynamics and the extent to which business groups have focussed on consolidating their position in specific, narrow sectors or, rather, entered new sectors and diversified. We find that while market concentration has been falling, a bloc of high concentration sectors remains. Further, diversification has been actively pursued across sectors by most business groups. While this points to greater competition among business groups, the ratio of revenues to variable costs – a measure of the markup – has shifted upwards, particularly after 2013. The weight and persistence of these large business groups in the economy, as measured by the ratio of their revenues to GDP, has also increased. Finally, we discuss possible policy options.

Keywords: market concentration; India; business groups; Hirschman Herfindahl Indices; diversification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 L1 L11 O14 O25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2024-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com and nep-reg
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