Imported Intermediate Inputs and Domestic Product Growth: Evidence from India

New goods play a central role in many trade and growth models. We use detailed trade and firm-level data from India to investigate the relationship between declines in trade costs, imports of intermediate inputs and domestic firm product scope. We estimate substantial gains from trade through access to new imported inputs. Moreover, we find that lower input tariffs account on average for 31 percent of the new products introduced by domestic firms. This effect is driven to a large extent by increased firm access to new input varieties that were unavailable prior to the trade liberalization.

This is an electronic version of an article published in Quarterly Journal of Economics 125, no. 4 (2010): 1727-1767.