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Political Reservations and Women's Entrepreneurship in India

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  • Ejaz Ghani
  • William R. Kerr
  • Stephen D. O'Connell

Abstract

We quantify the link between the timing of state-level implementations of political reservations for women in India with the role of women in India's manufacturing sector. While overall employment of women in manufacturing does not increase after the reforms, we find significant evidence that more women-owned establishments were created in the unorganized/informal sector. These new establishments were concentrated in industries where women entrepreneurs have been traditionally active and the entry was mainly found among household-based establishments. We measure and discuss the extent to which this heightened entrepreneurship is due to channels like greater finance access or heightened inspiration for women entrepreneurs.

Suggested Citation

  • Ejaz Ghani & William R. Kerr & Stephen D. O'Connell, 2014. "Political Reservations and Women's Entrepreneurship in India," NBER Working Papers 19868, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19868
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    Cited by:

    1. Girard, Victoire, 2018. "Don’t Touch My Road. Evidence from India on Affirmative Action And Everyday Discrimination," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 1-13.
    2. Islam, Asif, 2015. "Entrepreneurship and the Allocation of Government Spending Under Imperfect Markets," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 108-121.
    3. Banerjee, Ritwik & Gupta, Nabanita Datta & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2020. "Feedback spillovers across tasks, self-confidence and competitiveness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 127-170.
    4. Ghani,Syed Ejaz & Grover,Arti & Kerr,Sari & Kerr,William Robert, 2016. "Will market competition trump gender discrimination in India ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7814, The World Bank.
    5. Gille, Véronique, 2018. "Applying for social programs in India: Roles of local politics and caste networks in affirmative action," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 436-456.
    6. Fletcher, Erin K. & Pande, Rohini & Moore, Charity Troyer, 2019. "Women and Work in India: Descriptive Evidence and a Review of Potential Policies," India Policy Forum, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 15(1), pages 149-216.
    7. Stephen D. O'Connell, 2014. "Political Inclusion and Educational Investment," Working Papers 4, City University of New York Graduate Center, Ph.D. Program in Economics, revised 15 Jul 2015.
    8. Saibal Ghosh, 2023. "Gender and discouraged borrowers: Evidence from India," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(7), pages 1731-1752, October.
    9. Makarin, Alexey & Piqué, Ricardo & Aragón, Fernando, 2020. "National or sub-national parties: Does party geographic scope matter?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    10. Andrea Guariso & Bert Ingelaere & Marijke Verpoorten, 2017. " Female political representation in the aftermath of ethnic voilence. A comparative analysis of Burundi and Rwanda," Working Papers of LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance 610137, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance.
    11. Saibal Ghosh, 2022. "Financing obstacles for SMEs: the role of politics," Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, Springer;UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship, vol. 12(1), pages 329-340, December.
    12. Carolina Castilla, 2017. "Political role models, child marriage, and women’s autonomy over marriage in India," WIDER Working Paper Series 121, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Kalsi, Priti, 2017. "Seeing is believing- can increasing the number of female leaders reduce sex selection in rural India?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 1-18.
    14. Deininger,Klaus W. & Jin,Songqing & Nagarajan,Hari Krishnan & Singh,Sudhir K., 2020. "Political Reservation and Female Labor Force Participation in Rural India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9350, The World Bank.
    15. Bargain, Olivier & Boutin, Delphine & Champeaux, Hugues, 2019. "Women's political participation and intrahousehold empowerment: Evidence from the Egyptian Arab Spring," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    16. Ghani, Ejaz & Mani, Anandi & O'Connell, Stephen D., 2013. "Can political empowerment help economic empowerment ? women leaders and female labor force participation in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6675, The World Bank.
    17. Radeef Chundakkadan & Subash Sasidharan, 2022. "Gender gap and access to finance: A cross‐country analysis," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 180-207, February.
    18. Sutter, Christopher & Bruton, Garry D. & Chen, Juanyi, 2019. "Entrepreneurship as a solution to extreme poverty: A review and future research directions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 197-214.
    19. Pande, Rohini & Bernhardt, Arielle & Field, Erica & Rigol, Natalia, 2017. "Household Matters: Revisiting the Returns to Capital among Female Micro-entrepreneurs," CEPR Discussion Papers 11981, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. O'Connell, Stephen D., 2018. "Political inclusion and educational investment: Estimates from a national policy experiment in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 478-487.
    21. Andrea Guariso & Bert Ingelaere & Marijke Verpoorten, 2018. "When Ethnicity Beats Gender: Quotas and Political Representation in Rwanda and Burundi," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(6), pages 1361-1391, November.
    22. Priyanka, Sadia, 2020. "Do female politicians matter for female labor market outcomes? Evidence from state legislative elections in India," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    23. Karimli, Leyla & Lecoutere, Els & Wells, Christine R. & Ismayilova, Leyla, 2021. "More assets, more decision-making power? Mediation model in a cluster-randomized controlled trial evaluating the effect of the graduation program on women's empowerment in Burkina Faso," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    24. Arielle Bernhardt & Erica Field & Rohini Pande & Natalia Rigol, 2017. "Household Matters: Revisiting the Returns to Capital among Female Micro-entrepreneurs," NBER Working Papers 23358, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr & Tina Xu, 2017. "Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs: A Review of Recent Literature," NBER Working Papers 24097, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • E26 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Informal Economy; Underground Economy
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • R10 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - General
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

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