An Empirical Analysis of High Technology Manufacturing Segments of Export Sector

This paper analyses the firm level determinants of export behaviour of India's selected high-technology manufacturing segments - pharmaceuticals, auto motives and electronics. The selection of these three sectors is justified in two ways. First, the relevance of the inclusion of technologically sophisticated products in a country's export basket. Second, these sectors attracted substantial attention through policies and corporate strategies for developing domestic capability even before the economic liberalisation. This paper investigates how intra sectoral variation in export performance can be explained by decomposing the export behaviour into two - the firms' exporting - non-exporting dichotomy and export intensity. This paper recognizes the characteristics which might serve as potential determinants of exporting activities. This is tested empirically for the sample of firms for each sector, obtained from CMIE Prowess IQ, using Probit and Tobit regression analysis for panel data.