Economics, Econometrics and Finance, General Economics, Econometrics and Finance, General Economics, Econometrics and Finance, Economics and Econometrics
11
Scopus Publications
243
Scholar Citations
7
Scholar h-index
5
Scholar i10-index
Scopus Publications
Convergence and Clustering of Agricultural Exports from India: A Dynamic Analysis of Competitiveness and Specialisation Indian Journal of Economics and Development, 2026 This study examined the competitiveness of agricultural exports from 1991 to 2020 in India by assessing convergence and divergence across 24 agricultural subsectors. Using dynamic measures of comparative advantage, the analysis applied ?-and ?-convergence of the Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA) index and the Trade Balance Index (TBI), along with hierarchical clustering to capture long-run competitiveness patterns beyond static RCA measures. The findings revealed significant ?-convergence in RSCA (-0.41), indicating that initially weaker subsectors, such as dairy, processed foods, and vegetables, had strengthened over time. Despite declines in cereals and tobacco, TBI results showed an overall improvement in export performance. Cluster analysis highlighted a shift toward value-added and horticultural products, while bulk commodities exhibited stagnation. The study underscored the unevenness of structural transformation and emphasised the importance of policies that promote quality, branding, logistics, and diversification into high-value agricultural exports.
Export Granularity and How It Shapes Comparative Advantage and Trade Balance in Indian Manufacturing Husaindad Hassani, B.P. Sarath Chandran Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, 2026 India is emerging as a rapidly growing economy, with many multinational companies expanding globally. Export granularity calls for tailored trade and industrial policies, making it pertinent to study its effects on the comparative advantage and trade balance of India’s manufacturing industries. Calculating the shares of granular firms, employing a nonparametric test, and applying static convergence regression analysis, this study finds that the export share of top manufacturing exporters ranges from 18% to 34%, and granularity in exports is higher than in gross output and factors of production. Export specialization strengthens when top exporters are excluded, while the trade balance worsens. Manufacturing exports are more concentrated in low technology (LT) and high-medium technology (HMT) product groups than in medium-low technology (MLT) product groups, and this concentration increases further when top exporters are excluded. The impact of top exporting firms is stronger in the MLT product group, indicating their key role in shaping the group’s comparative advantage. After excluding the granular firms, the share of industries with comparative advantage increased over time, except for a few years. The findings suggest that trade policy should support ordinary firms in diversifying and strengthening the manufacturing sector’s comparative advantage, particularly in the MLT product group. JEL Classifications F14, F19
Assessing the drivers of india’s agricultural export growth: Scale, competitive and interaction effects Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2026
Differential impacts of COVID-19 lockdown on informal workers in Goa: A gendered and sectoral analysis Gouri Kanta Manerkar, B P Sarath Chandran Journal of Social Economics Research, 2025 The COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted informal workers in terms of employment and income, especially in tourism-dependent economies such as Goa in India. The paper examined the socioeconomic vulnerabilities experienced by informal workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular attention to gender, employment sector, and migrant status. Using a mixed methods approach, the study collected data from 250 informal workers employed in Goa's formal and informal sectors to examine employment vulnerability. Findings from the binary logistic model indicated that a significant proportion of informal workers lost their jobs during the lockdown, with women, migrants, and daily wage earners facing the highest risks. Informal workers employed in the informal sectors are more susceptible to job loss, and their chances of reemployment are lower compared to their counterparts in the formal sectors. Due to multiple job roles and caregiving responsibilities for their families, women are more likely to experience job loss and less likely to regain employment after the pandemic. The lack of social security and challenges related to reverse migration increase the vulnerability of migrant workers during the pandemic. Education serves as a protective buffer, as higher levels of education decrease the likelihood of job loss. The paper strongly advocates for urgent, targeted policy interventions, including expanded social security, sector-specific relief programs, and alternative livelihood options to enhance resilience in tourism-dependent informal economies. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the labor market disruptions caused by the pandemic and highlight the importance of developing inclusive recovery strategies.
Firm Heterogeneity and India’s Manufacturing Exports: Lessons on Protection and Trade Theory Husaindad Hassani, Sarath Chandran BP International Trade Journal, 2025 Empirical examinations of heterogeneity among Indian manufacturing firms provide helpful lessons for trade theories and policies. Using descriptive statistics of cross-section data for 2011, 2015, and 2019, the asymptotic Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test, and regression analysis, the study reveals that firms are heterogeneous within each 4-digit National Industrial Classification (NIC) category, exporting firms are more productive than non-exporters, and exporter premia decline with trading activities. The study concludes that recent protectionist policies reduced extensive trade margins, firm heterogeneity, and productivity in the Indian manufacturing sector.
Trade Potential of India UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) Narayan Saeel, Sarath Chandran BP Journal of Economic Cooperation and Development, 2025 The paper examines the impact of the India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IUCEPA) on the composition and the extent of bilateral trade between India and UAE. To understand the complementarity of trade structure and potential for trade cooperation, the paper employed indicators such as Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), Revealed Trade Advantage (RTA) and Revealed. Competitiveness (RC), along with trade specialisation analysis. To understand the trade impact of the IUCEPA agreement on both nations, an augmented gravity model with the Fixed Effect Vector Decomposition (FEVD) and Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimation techniques were used. The findings revealed that India has had a more stable comparative advantage compared to the UAE over the years. There exists complementary trade between the two countries. The overall impact of the CEPA is positive, with the trade projected to increase to US$113 billion within five years of signing the agreement. The study concludes that the India-UAE CEPA is a promising FTA for India and provides important lessons for future trade agreements to maximise the trade potential existing with other major trade partners.
Factors determining return migration of Goan emigrants Roy Gomes, Sarath Chandran Asian Development Policy Review, 2025 Goa is a small, progressive state in India and a former Portuguese colony with a long history of international migration, experiencing return migration in recent periods. The study attempts to locate the significant factors causing the return migration of Goans into the State. The study uses primary data collected from 400 return migrants on twenty-two attributes responsible for their return. An Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) is used to determine the factors responsible for return migration and compare them against their socioeconomic attributes. The EFA identifies six factors for return migration, namely, Workplace (W), Personal (P), Job-related (JR), Friends (F), Family (FA), and Facilities (FC). Family, Job-related, and Workplace factors are the main factors causing return migration, and international migration has helped them improve their quality of life and standard of living. The government should take proactive steps to utilize the skills and experience acquired by the return migrants by creating an enabling environment in the State and rehabilitating them based on their motivation to return to their home country. The study is significant for formulating the reintegration and rehabilitation policies for the return migrants who have significantly contributed to the State's economic development.
Determinants of Extensive and Intensive Margins of Indian Agriculture: Gravity Model Analysis Averyl Pires, B. P. Sarath Chandran Research on World Agricultural Economy, 2024 The paper examined the intensive and extensive margin of India’s agricultural exports and identified the determinants of the trade margins using a gravity trade model. Panel data on India’s bilateral agricultural trade with 20 major partner countries for thirty years from 1991 to 2020 is constructed under the HS-6-digit classification of 600 agricultural products for the analysis. The intensive and extensive margins of India’s agricultural exports are calculated using the Hummels and Klenow method. The determinants of extensive and intensive margins of India’s agricultural trade are identified based on the gravity model of trade framework using estimation methods of Feasible Generalised Least Squares (FGLS) and Pseudo Poisson Maximum Likelihood (PPML). The results showed that the extensive margins are more dominant than the intensive margins over the thirty year period. The gravity model revealed that variables such as relative economic magnitude, relative economic freedom, distance, relative agriculture value added, relative crop production, relative purchasing power, trade agreements, and common language significantly influence the extensive and intensive margins of India’s agricultural exports. The results imply that for sustained agricultural export growth, India should pursue policies for identifying new export destinations and deepen existing products by taking initiatives to strengthen the determinants identified in the study.
Empirical validation of marginalisation thesis on the participation in the informal economy in Goa Gouri Kanta Manerkar, BP Sarath Chandran Asian Economic and Financial Review, 2024 This paper investigates the global increase in informal labor, focusing on two primary theoretical perspectives: the marginalization thesis and the reinforcement thesis. Previous empirical studies across various contexts have not definitively settled this debate. The current study, conducted in Goa, India, offers distinctive insights. Data from 200 informally employed individuals in both the formal and informal sectors was collected using snowball sampling. The findings of the binary logistic regression model reveal that the marginalisation thesis holds true, as individuals who are marginalised in terms of gender, age, education, and household employment in the informal sector are more likely to engage in informal employment. Conversely, the reinforcement thesis is supported when workplace characteristics such as flexible work timing and employment in construction services are considered. Therefore, the study concludes that a combination of marginalisation and reinforcement factors explains the reasons behind participation in the informal economy. Therefore, analysing labour market dynamics can offer valuable insights into informal employment.
India BIMSTEC Economic Cooperation: Potential and Prospects B.P. Sarath Chandran Indian Journal of Economics and Development, 2019 The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) was established in 1997 is a unique sub-regional initiative in Asia. It combines the south and South-Eas tAsia with five countries of SAARC and two countries of ASEAN. BIMSTEC is a sector-driven cooperative organisation with key areas of economic cooperation include trade, investment, regional value chains, energy, connectivity, technology, management and capacity building, people to people contact, among others. Even after two decades of existence, BIMSTEC achieved limited progress as India the largest member of the group showed little interest in it. But the failure of SAARC as an effective sub-regional economic integration in Asia and the incorrigible differences between India and Pakistan, the two largest economies of SAARC led to the rethinking and resurrection of BIMSTEC in the recent past. India's strategic interests in the Himalayan, Bay of Bengal and Mekong sub-regions have grown over the years and the expansionist tendencies of China in these regions led to India's renewed engagements with BIMSTEC. In this context, the paper looks into the trade relation between India and BIMSTEC countries and identified the unexplored trade potential and possible areas of cooperation between India and BIMSTEC countries. The trade impact of the likely India BIMSTEC Regional TradeAgreement (RTA) is ascertained using partial equilibrium simulation model. Indicators such as Trade Intensity Index (TII) and Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) showed that there is trade complementary existing between India and BIMSTEC countries and the possibility of enhanced economic cooperation between them. The SMART simulation showed that there is trade creation from a potential India BIMSTEC FTA for the participating countries. The simulation analysis also revealed that the total trade effect of India BIMSTEC RTA was 2.369 billion US dollars, total welfare was 267.044 million dollars and the trade creation was 412.2 thousand US dollars.
India-ASEAN free trade agreement: Implications for fisheries Economic and Political Weekly, 2012
RECENT SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS
Export Granularity and How It Shapes Comparative Advantage and Trade Balance in Indian Manufacturing BPSC Husaindad Hassani Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies , 2026 2026
Convergence and clustering of agricultural exports from India: a dynamic analysis of competitiveness and specialisation. A Pires, BPS Chandran 2026
Convergence and Clustering of Agricultural Exports from India: A Dynamic Analysis of Competitiveness and Specialisation BPSCP Averyl Indian Journal of Economics and Development 22 (1), 163 - 173 , 2026 2026
Trade Potential of India UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) BPSC Narayan Saeel Journal of Economic Cooperation and Development 46 (1) , 2025 2025
Differential impacts of COVID-19 lockdown on informal workers in Goa: A gendered and sectoral analysis BPS Chandran, KG Manerkar Journal of Social Economics Research 12 (3), 176 - 191 , 2025 2025 Citations: 1
Trade Potential of India UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) BS Saeel, N., & Chandran Journal of Economic Cooperation and Development 46 (1), 27-54 , 2025 2025
India’s International Trade in The Amrit Kaal – Priorities and way Forward BPS Chandran 75 YEARS OF INDIAN ECONOMY AND POLITY WAY FORWARD IN AMRIT KAAL, 35 - 54 , 2025 2025
Factors determining return migration of Goan emigrants R Gomes, S Chandran Factors determining return migration of Goan emigrants 13 (1), 95 - 111 , 2025 2025
Determinants of Extensive and Intensive Margins of Indian Agriculture: Gravity Model Analysis DS Chandran Available at SSRN 5039642 , 2024 2024
Determinants of Extensive and Intensive Margins of Indian Agriculture: Gravity Model Analysis A Pires, BPS Chandran Research on World Agricultural Economy, 495-516 , 2024 2024
Empirical validation of marginalisation thesis on the participation in the informal economy in Goa GKM BP Sarath Chandran Asian Economic and Financial Review 14 (No. 5), 326-338 , 2024 2024
Firm Heterogeneity and India’s Manufacturing Exports: Lessons on Protection and Trade Theory BPS Chandran, H Hassani The International Trade Journal , 2024 2024 Citations: 2
Comparison of Trade Complementarities and Similarities between India and ASEAN Countries BPS Chandran, PK Sudarsan Regional and Multilateral Trade in Developing Countries, 215-234 , 2020 2020 Citations: 1
India BIMSTEC economic cooperation: potential and prospects BPS Chandran Indi Jour of Econ and Develop 15 (4), 489 , 2019 2019 Citations: 2
Regional Integration and Foreign Direct Investment into ASEAN-5: An Augmented Gravity Model Analysis. BP Sarath Chandran IUP Journal of Applied Economics 17 (2) , 2018 2018 Citations: 3
Awareness, Perceived Difficulties and Economic Impact of Laadli Laxmi Scheme (LLS) in Goa. BP Chandran 2018
India’s sub regional economic integration in Asia–an analysis’ BP Chandran Zenith International Journal of Business Economics and Management Research 8 … , 2018 2018
India in the regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP)–need for caution DS Chandran Available at SSRN 3110581 , 2018 2018 Citations: 8
Trade impact of the India-Asean free trade agreement (FTA): an augmented gravity model analysis DS Chandran Available at SSRN 3108804 , 2018 2018 Citations: 13
Why Do Countries Enter into Regional Trade Agreements–Insights from the Literature DS Chandran Available at SSRN 3024684 , 2017 2017 Citations: 4
MOST CITED SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS
Trade Complementarity and Similarity between India and ASEAN Countries in the Context of the RTA DS Chandran Available at SSRN 1763299 , 2011 2011 Citations: 102
Financial inclusion strategies for inclusive growth in India BP Sarath Chandran, TK Manju 2010 Citations: 37
India-ASEAN free trade agreement: Implications for fisheries BPS Chandran, PK Sudarsan Economic and Political Weekly, 65-70 , 2012 2012 Citations: 23
Revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and trade complementarity between India-ASEAN trade: A study with reference to fisheries sector DS Chandran, PK Sudarsan Available at SSRN 2054132 , 2012 2012 Citations: 16
Trade impact of the India-Asean free trade agreement (FTA): an augmented gravity model analysis DS Chandran Available at SSRN 3108804 , 2018 2018 Citations: 13
Trade Compatibility between India and ASEAN countries DS Chandran Available at SSRN 1932266 , 2011 2011 Citations: 9
India in the regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP)–need for caution DS Chandran Available at SSRN 3110581 , 2018 2018 Citations: 8
Implications of India-Asean Fta on India’s fisheries sector BP Sarath Chandran 2012 Citations: 7
Why Do Countries Enter into Regional Trade Agreements–Insights from the Literature DS Chandran Available at SSRN 3024684 , 2017 2017 Citations: 4
Trade in Manufactured Products between India and ASEAN–A Symmetric RCA Analysis DS Chandran Available at SSRN 3007040 , 2015 2015 Citations: 4
Composition, direction and intra-regional trade among SAARC countries—An analysis BPS Chandran International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Research 3 (5), 33-40 , 2013 2013 Citations: 4
Regional Integration and Foreign Direct Investment into ASEAN-5: An Augmented Gravity Model Analysis. BP Sarath Chandran IUP Journal of Applied Economics 17 (2) , 2018 2018 Citations: 3
Firm Heterogeneity and India’s Manufacturing Exports: Lessons on Protection and Trade Theory BPS Chandran, H Hassani The International Trade Journal , 2024 2024 Citations: 2
India BIMSTEC economic cooperation: potential and prospects BPS Chandran Indi Jour of Econ and Develop 15 (4), 489 , 2019 2019 Citations: 2
Health tourism in India: Potential and prospects TK Manju, BP Sarath Chandran Int J Res Econ Soc Sci, 373-84 , 2017 2017 Citations: 2
Why do Countries Form Regional Trade Agreements-Insights from the Literature S Chandran International Research Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies 3 (8), 1-14 , 2017 2017 Citations: 2
Trade complementarity and similarity between India and ASEAN countries in the context of the RTA. MPRA Paper 29279 BP Sarath Chandran 2010 Citations: 2
Differential impacts of COVID-19 lockdown on informal workers in Goa: A gendered and sectoral analysis BPS Chandran, KG Manerkar Journal of Social Economics Research 12 (3), 176 - 191 , 2025 2025 Citations: 1
Comparison of Trade Complementarities and Similarities between India and ASEAN Countries BPS Chandran, PK Sudarsan Regional and Multilateral Trade in Developing Countries, 215-234 , 2020 2020 Citations: 1
Economic impact of regional trade agreements: A study of ASEAN and its implications on India BPS Chandran PhD Thesis). Goa University, Goa, India , 2009 2009 Citations: 1
