Amirapu et al. (2018) measure industrial concentration with a spatially adjusted index of industrial concentration based on the Ellison and Glaeser (EG) index. The adjustment introduces a neighborhood effect into the EG index. Data from the Economic Census are used to estimate the index. Both the weighted and unweighted EG indices decreased clearly between 1998 and 2013. Amirapu et al. argue three points from the results of their estimated EG indices. First, the levels of agglomeration in India seem to be highest in capital intensive industries. Second, the levels of coagglomeration between pairs of industries are highest between certain high-technology and skill-intensive industries. Third, the average levels of industrial concentration have been falling dramatically over time, and this trend is driven by decreases in concentration among capital intensive manufacturing industries. Amirapu et al. ascribe the reasons for the decreases in concentration as being policy incentives for the dispersal of industries and the balance of frictions in the factor markets for land and labor and the reduction of transportation costs.I have four comments on Amirapu et al.'s paper. First, the dispersion process of capital-intensive industries did not restrain their rapid growth. The Indian manufacturing sector developed rapidly due to an investment boom in the second half of 2000s. Between 1998Between -1999Between and 2012Between -2013, the gross value added (GVA) of electrical machinery, transport equipment, and all industries in the organized sector increased by 13.9%, 10.5%, and 8.8% per annum, respectively. During the period, the growth rates of GVA accelerated in these three sectors. Automobile and electronic industries have been developed in three metropolitan regions: Delhi, Mumbai-Pune, and Chennai. Large foreign and domestic companies looked for cheap and larger space in suburban areas to set up industrial estates not only for their own factories, but also for their suppliers. They want to control the prompt delivery from their suppliers. The Delhi National Capital (DNC) region, which consists of Delhi, Gurgaon District, Faridabad District, Gautam Budh Nagar District, is a good example. In the first stage, large-size plants and industrial estates were set up in Gurgaon, Faridabad, and Noida. †Correspondence:
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.