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This study examines the performance of India's food processing sector by estimating its output growth, technical efficiency (TE) and input-driven growth (IDG)

This study used panel data from six food processing manufacturing industries for the period 2000–01 to 2017–18. Technical efficiency and input-driven growth was measured using the parametric half-normal stochastic frontier production function.

The findings of this study showed that the estimated average technical efficiency is 86.6%, which specifies that the Indian food processing sector is technically inefficient. In addition, the output growth rate is 5.5%, driven by high doses of inputs (5.7%), whereas there is no indication of constant returns to scale. However, the food processing sector has experienced more input-driven expansion than either technological or efficiency changes.

This study is limited to India's organized manufacturing food processing sector; the aggregate macro data at a three-digit level based on the national industrial classification (NIC) was used. This study provides robust estimates for industrialists and processors, as well as concrete policy formulations on how overdoses of inputs may lead to high exploitation of resources, whereas outputs can be augmented by implementing upgraded and new technologies.

Previous research has estimated the total factor productivity and technical efficiency only in order to analyze the food sector's performance, but none of the studies have evaluated the share of inputs in growth performance and efficiency. Therefore, this study contributes by measuring growth performance and the share of inputs in the growth performance of India's food processing sector.

The purpose of this study is to examine the performance of Indian engineering goods industry by measuring the technical efficiency and input-driven growth.

The study used the panel data of six firms from the period of 1991–92 to 2014–15 compiled from Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), India and output-oriented econometric techniques such as pooled OLS model, and stochastic frontier approach has been applied to measure the technical efficiency.

The results suggest that the prime sources of high performance in engineering goods industry, which has recorded 8.8% output growth, are primarily contributed by inputs driven growth (8.2%) during the post-reform period, while the effect of technological change is minimal (0.1%) and technical efficiency change is negative (−0.2%). It was due to sluggishness, outdated technology and underutilization of resources in Indian economy.

This research paper is limited to engineering goods industry based on concorded macro data. The recommendations are that India should pursue policies and programs which may focus on technology acquisition, skill enhancement of labor, better capacity utilization, R&D and infrastructure development that may augment the technical change and technical efficiency change of the sector.

This research provides robust and significant estimates of technical efficiency and adds valuable insights to the existing literature by identifying the potential areas that improves the performance of Indian engineering goods industry.