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Effects of diversification on firm performance: an analysis of Indian firms

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Abstract

This study has empirically tested the relationship between diversification and firm performance using balanced panel data on 1759 firms in India. We include firms across all industries in the manufacturing and service sector during the period 2012–2018. Our dynamic panel estimation results indicate that diversification measured by count, entropy index, or weighted diversification index, does not have a statistically significant impact on performance measured by Tobin’s Q and Return on Assets (ROA). The results hold irrespective of firm size, firm age, and group affiliation. Our robustness test, applying 2SLS method, corroborates the above findings for ROA but shows a negative relation with Tobin’s Q for some measures of diversification.

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Data availability

Data supporting the findings of this study are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author (ZMB). The data is not publicly available at present as it is part of an ongoing PhD thesis.

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Mitra Bose, Z., Chakraborty, I. Effects of diversification on firm performance: an analysis of Indian firms. Ind. Econ. Rev. 57, 469–511 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41775-022-00143-y

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