Mergers and Acquisitions, Technological Efforts and Exports: A Study of Pharmaceutical Sector in India

This report attempts to examine the role of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and technological efforts in determining the export competitiveness of firms belonging to Indian Pharmaceutical Industry. M&A provides synergistic gains to firms and new competitive advantages arises from the complementarities of merging and acquiring firm specific intangible assets like production skills, brand names and better management capabilities. These gains could affect positively the export behaviour of domestic firms and could increase their degree of internationalization. In this study we also considered technological efforts in terms of in-house R&D, import of embodied technology, import of disembodied technology and import of raw material. Other export determinants like firm size, age, MNE affiliation capital intensity etc. are also considered for the study.