Paper co-authored by IIMB Doctoral student Tanya Jain, Ahmedabad University’s Rahul Singh and Prof. Chetan Subramanian wins Second Best Paper Award at the 10th India Finance Conference
The paper is titled, ‘Debt Contract Enforcement and Product Innovation: Evidence from a Legal Reform in India’; award consists of certificate and cash prize of $300 or its equivalent
20 December, 2021, Bengaluru: A paper titled, ‘Debt Contract Enforcement and Product Innovation: Evidence from a Legal Reform in India’, co-authored by Tanya Jain, Doctoral student from the Economics & Social Sciences (ESS) area of IIM Bangalore, Rahul Singh of Ahmedabad University, and Prof. Chetan Subramanian, Dean, Faculty, and faculty from the ESS area, IIMB, has won the Second Best Paper Award at the 10th India Finance Conference, concluded recently.
The award consists of a certificate and a cash prize of $300 or its equivalent.
Congratulating the winners on their achievement, Prof. Haritha Saranga, Chairperson, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and faculty in the Production & Operations Management area of IIMB, said: “This indeed is great news and a proud moment for the Doctoral programme. I am glad to see Doctoral students collaborating with their seniors and the hard work paying off. I look forward to many more such awards and the work getting published in top-tier journals in your field.”
Abstract of the paper: Due to a legal challenge, there was staggered introduction of fast track debt recovery tribunals (DRTs) across the states of India in the 1990s. Exploiting this plausibly exogenous variation in the efficiency of debt contract enforcement and using detailed information on product lines produced by the manufacturing firms, the paper studies the causal effect of debt contract enforcement on product growth. It is found that DRTs account for over 15% of the observed increase in firms' product scope during the sample period. Firms enter into new product lines in industries outside of their current scope of operation suggesting bolder innovation moves in response to DRTs. This increase in product scope is driven by firms in the top quartile of tangible asset distribution. These firms increase their borrowings and investments in R&D, plant and machinery, and selling & distribution expenses. There is also a significant improvement in their performance as measured by sales, profitability and exports. In contrast, low tangible asset firms lose market share and experience a decline in their performance. DRTs also increase the aggregate state-industry level TFP by 6% driven by a significant increase in the TFP of the high tangible asset firms.