Competitive Pressure on the Indian Households: A General Equilibrium Approach

How would competitive pressure impact upon the income distribution and the poverty of household groups? We analyse the gains in efficiency and productivity due to competitive pressure, and its distributional effects using a general equilibrium input–output framework. Efficient utilization of the available resources, technical progress and free trade constitute our sources of growth. Welfare would increase under competition, but the income distribution would become more skewed. Rural household groups would stand to lose relative to the urban ones. Urban poverty would be reduced significantly more than rural. In fact, the agricultural worker would even suffer from an increase in poverty. The study shows that competitive pressure has a positive effect on efficiency, productivity and poverty, but an adverse effect on the income distribution in the Indian economy.     

The Extraction of Technical Coefficients from Input and Output Data

Presumably, input-output coefficients reflect technology, and these coefficients measure the input requirements per unit of product. This concept has been extended to consumption theory, where it models expenditure shares. Input-output coefficients are extracted from the national accounts of an economy, by taking average proportions between inputs and outputs. Since the latter represent all sorts of inefficiencies, this practice blurs the measurement of technology. Input requirements are better measured by minimal proportions between inputs and outputs. This approach separates the measurement of technology from that of productive efficiency.