1. Investigating India's Electronics Export Strength: A Comparative Advantage Analysis

The electronics industry holds great strategic importance for any nation due to its broad use across several industries and its capacity to boost productivity throughout the economy. While the IT services sector currently views India as a “global superpower,” one of the main drivers of India's product imports is the electronics sector. The imbalance between the nation’s demand and domestic production capability for electronics has widened even after nearly 20 years of trade liberalization. Therefore, it is significant to study the changes in recent exports and import scenario of the industry. This paper aims to evaluate India's electronics sector revealed comparative advantage (RCA). Additionally, it examines how India’s comparative advantage has changed between 2013 and 2023. For the purpose of analysis, we have adhered to the commodity aggregation scheme used in the World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS). To determine what products had a competitive advantage over exports, the four RCA index versions were employed. The indices underwent tests for stability and consistency over time. The study found India has a solid comparative advantage in electric motors and generators (8501), electric generating sets (8502), electrical transformers (8504), and electrical apparatus for switching or protecting electrical circuits (8535, 8536, 8537). This advantage has persisted across the three time periods. Products like primary cells and batteries (8506), vacuum cleaners (8508), and shavers/hair clippers (8510) show consistently low RCA values, indicating a lack of comparative advantage in these areas. All four RCA indices are highly consistent and stable over time which shows that these indices are significant in shaping the degree of comparative advantage in electronic products. The study recommends that there should be incentives for electronics product manufacturers based on their export efforts. This study is helpful to policymakers, manufacturers, and small enterprises to focus on more efforts to increase production activity related to electronics products as we have comparative advantages in these products.