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Purpose: Manufacturing has always been considered a backbone for economic growth. It has been considered an imperative sector in the growth of an economy. This study aims to trace the long-term relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) and manufacturing sector in the context of Indian economy.

Need for the study: According to research, the significance of the manufacturing sector is waning over time. This chapter studies the long-term relationship between the GDP, an indicator of growth, and the manufacturing sector. Over the last few decades, the contribution of manufacturing has been stagnant in the GDP of India.

Methodology: The decadal growth of various sectors in the GDP of India is studied using time series analysis. This study used the data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) from 1950–1951 to 2013–2014. The long-term relationship between the sector of manufacturing and the GDP is examined through the augmented Dicky–Fuller (ADF) test and auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) models.

Findings: The findings suggest that in the Indian scenario, there is no relationship for an extended period between the GDP and the manufacturing sector, which calls for further policy implications.

Practical implications: India, while having the world’s fastest-growing economy, must continue to take steps to attain high growth rates and long-term sustainability by reducing obstacles to the expansion of the service sector in addition to manufacturing. Manufacturing-led services are to be boosted through policy interventions.

In India, economic reforms adopted in 1991 in form of LPG (Liberalization-Privatization-Globalization) removed numerous barriers to grow and offered opportunities to improve productivity, particularly, for the manufacturing sector. But the rationale that manufacturing sector acted as main contributor to country's economic growth via GDP growth (called “engine of growth”) for a long time in India has been challenged now a day. The growing significance of the services sector across the world exhibits that at the present time, the services sector could become the new engine of economic growth in developing economies like India. The present study seeks to bring to light whether manufacturing is acting as an “engine of growth” at inter-state level in India or not and the cross section result indicates that potency of manufacturing growth and agricultural growth is gradually slowing down as a conforming part of economic growth and service sector is taking leading position in accelerating engine of growth in India.

The unseen benefit of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria is that it presented an insight into the contributions of the manufacturing industry to the socio-economic development of the nation. During the pandemic, the unavailability of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) have demonstrated the low production capability of the Nigerian manufacturing industry to provide essential materials and equipment required by the health sector. This availability of these facilities is vital for the sustenance of public health and lives of frontline health workers. Consequently, this challenge resulted in an increase in infection and deaths of frontline health workers which could have minimized if there were adequate provision of PPE local production. Hence, this study postulates that the COVID-19 pandemic is an entrepreneurial opportunity in Nigeria, especially for the mass production of PPE to service the health sector of Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa. The study therefore investigated the challenges of entrepreneurship in Nigeria's manufacturing industry and examined how the strategic partnership between educational institutions, corporate bodies and the government can be optimized. Utilizing a qualitative research methodology based on scholarly journals and interview sessions, the study revealed that Nigeria's manufacturing capability is low due to Nigeria's age-long protectionist tendency, lack of integration of entrepreneurship skill in the industry, inadequate knowledge of financial knowledge, lack of synergy in the industry, among others. The study recommended a strategic framework for Nigeria's manufacturing industry for the production of PPE in form of a helix model after an overhauling of the production process of the industry.

This paper investigates the role of infrastructure aid to developing countries beset with unemployment. Since unemployment persists in most developing countries with chronic foreign debts, the impact of infrastructure aid is analyzed using an extended Harris–Todaro model with two traded good sectors and a nontraded good sector. The paper delineates sufficient conditions under which infrastructure aid may lead to a Dutch disease effect.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the performance of manufacturing firms in Nigeria.

Methodology – Annual data of aggregate foreign direct investment, manufacturing foreign direct investment, manufacturing index, manufacturing capacity utilization, manufacturing value added, and manufacturing turnovers were used. In the analysis, we tested for stationarity using augmented Dickey–Fuller test, and the test for long-run relationship was conducted using Johansen cointegration test. Vector error correction model was used for causality test.

Findings – The data satisfied the stationarity test and that there is a long-run relationship between FDI and the performance of manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The study also found that causality runs from FDI to the performance of manufacturing firms.

Practical implications – Since there is a long-run relationship among the variables, policies to attract FDI into the manufacturing sector should have a long range view and should be sustainable. The policy direction should focus on improving productivity and innovative capabilities of the manufacturing sectors and strengthening the supporting industries and institutions. Specifically, policies like provision of tax relief to manufacturers on importation of new technology and expatriate that will bring about efficiency and effectiveness in productions.

Originality/Value of paper – This is one of the few attempts at studying the impact of FDI on manufacturing firms. The study draws attention of policy makers in Nigeria to the fact that diversification of the economy can be achieved through a viable manufacturing sector.

The following is an introductory profile of the fastest growing firms over the three-year period of the study listed by corporate reputation ranking order. The business activities in which the firms are engaged are outlined to provide background information for the reader.

European countries, which have many common policies and goals, are also having some disparities in their economic performance due to the existence of underlying country-specific reasons. The manufacturing sector is the key sector that promotes growth and increases the well-being of society. Thus, it is important to understand how these countries differ in engaging in industrial activities. Focusing on the manufacturing sectors of these economies, we aim to see the disparities between European Union (EU) countries in terms of their composition of manufacturing trade and the countries they are trading with. This chapter outlines some key stylized facts regarding trade over the past two decades by investigating the manufacturing data for EU countries.

The contribution of the different sectors in gross domestic product (GDP) growth significantly implies the relative strength of the sectors over the country. The countries are classified by world agencies in terms of regional variation as well as income classification on the basis of the topographical location and international economic strength. This chapter considers the contribution of allied sectors over GDP considering manufacturing as a separate entity under the regional variation and different income classifications. It uses World Bank recent data set of 2010 and 2018 for cross-sectional analysis of GDP growth incorporating regional variation and income classification as discrete variables. Region-specific and income classification–specific regression identifies the variations in scores and changes in importance of different allied sectors.

This paper examines the statistical relationship between outbound Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and firm performance. We focus on how the link is influenced by sector-specific differences and geographical factors.

We compile a time-series cross-sectional dataset that includes financial variables and FDI activities of South Korean firms between 2005 and 2008 from the DART, a financial statement database. Then, we fit our data against the linear regression models that we designed to identify FDI-performance relationship in different subsamples. Our measurement of firm performance is specifically constructed to reflect excess returns in the stock market.

We found compelling differences in the degree of FDI-performance relationships across different industries. In manufacturing sectors, the flow of direct investment is more heavily associated with firm performances than accumulated stock of direct investment, and vice versa in the service sector. The impact of China factors toward performance aspects of Korea’s outbound FDI which also differs across sectors as well.

Although there have been extensive research efforts on this subject in general, our paper addresses an increasingly significant class of FDIs that have received relatively less attention, that is, direct investment originating from developing economies. Also, our analysis adds a sectoral dimension that contributes to more comprehensive understanding of a multinational-performance relationship.