Growth responses to competitive shocks: Market structure dynamics under liberalisation

Liberalisation transforms market structures through the responses of incumbent firms and entrants to freedom of choice. Market shares tend to turn more volatile, and the agility and competitiveness of small, as against large, firms determine whether markets grow more concentrated, or less. We analyse the way these processes played out in Indian manufacturing industries over the 17-year period from 1981, spanning the domestic liberalisation of 1985 and the more comprehensive reforms of 1991. An observer looking at summary measures of market concentration might conclude that not much happened under either liberalisation episode. In fact, market share grew significantly more turbulent, and the relationship between market share-growth and initial share changed considerably. Domestic and comprehensive liberalisation saw different types of course corrections in these processes. But in both liberalisation episodes they tended to offset one another in their impact on observed market concentration, which therefore, changed little.