TY - JOUR
T1 - Finance, Gender, and Entrepreneurship
T2 - India’s Informal Sector Firms
AU - Gang, Ira N.
AU - Raj Natarajan, Rajesh
AU - Sen, Kunal
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 UNU-WIDER. Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - How does informal economic activity respond to increased financial inclusion? Does it become more entrepreneurial? Does access to new financing options change the gender configuration of informal economic activity and, if so, in what ways and what directions? We take advantage of nationwide data collected in 2010/11 and 2015/16 by India’s National Sample Survey Office on unorganized (informal) enterprises. This period was one of rapid expansion of banking availability aimed particularly at the unbanked, under-banked, and women. We find strong empirical evidence supporting the crucial role of financial access in promoting entrepreneurship among informal sector firms in India. Our results are robust to alternative specifications and alternative measures of financial constraints using an approach combining propensity score matching and difference-in-differences. However, we do not find conclusive evidence that increased financial inclusion leads to a higher likelihood of women becoming entrepreneurs than men in the informal sector.
AB - How does informal economic activity respond to increased financial inclusion? Does it become more entrepreneurial? Does access to new financing options change the gender configuration of informal economic activity and, if so, in what ways and what directions? We take advantage of nationwide data collected in 2010/11 and 2015/16 by India’s National Sample Survey Office on unorganized (informal) enterprises. This period was one of rapid expansion of banking availability aimed particularly at the unbanked, under-banked, and women. We find strong empirical evidence supporting the crucial role of financial access in promoting entrepreneurship among informal sector firms in India. Our results are robust to alternative specifications and alternative measures of financial constraints using an approach combining propensity score matching and difference-in-differences. However, we do not find conclusive evidence that increased financial inclusion leads to a higher likelihood of women becoming entrepreneurs than men in the informal sector.
KW - Entrepreneurship
KW - India
KW - difference-in-differences
KW - financial constraints
KW - gender
KW - informal sector
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U2 - 10.1080/00220388.2022.2061855
DO - 10.1080/00220388.2022.2061855
M3 - Article
SN - 0022-0388
VL - 58
SP - 1383
EP - 1402
JO - Journal of Development Studies
JF - Journal of Development Studies
IS - 7
ER -