The recent import surge of raw agarbatti in India presumes to have a detrimental impact on the employment and profitability of the domestic firms. A deep dive indicates that imports of bamboo sticks from China and raw incense sticks from Vietnam have adversely affected the domestic incense stick units. The import surge is partly associated with positive trends in firms’ productivity, mainly through the import of intermediate inputs indicating significant heterogeneity of these effects in terms of firms’ proximity to the ports and the initial productivity level.
