TITLE:
Do Knowledge and Technology-Intensive Industries Spatially Concentrate in Rural and Urban Areas of India? Evidence from Economic Census Micro-Level Data
AUTHORS:
Sugam Agarwal, Smruti Ranjan Behera
KEYWORDS:
Urban-Rural, Geographic Concentration, Technology Intensity, Regional Policy
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.12 No.4,
August
19,
2022
ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the geographic concentration
of knowledge and technology-intensive (KTI) industries,
covering 0.43 million establishments across various districts of rural and urban areas in India. Using the spatially
weighted Ellison-Glaeser index, cartogram and choropleth map results
show that few KTI industries are highly geographically concentrated in urban
and rural areas, specific to certain districts and a few Indian states. Within
highly employable states of India, workers are employed in only a particular
location of a few districts. Also, we
differentiate between urban and rural concentrated and urban and rural
dispersed districts within highly employable states. In addition, results
validate the extent of the geographical concentration of KTI industries in
rural and urban areas of highly employable Indian states. Further, results exhibit that industries spatially
concentrate in only a few locations across specific districts in India,
indicating natural advantages and other economic forces are pretty strong in
certain areas. Besides, results suggest that the demand-based networks and push-and-pull
supply chains are well established in a specific location of a few districts,
incentivizing other firms to locate their business, which creates a spatial
spillover effect and benefits all economic agents. Empirical results suggest
that policymakers in India could unleash the resource potential of spatially
concentrated districts by implementing a location-based policy and considering
multi-level governance and informal and formal institutions, which could
further boost regional economic growth.