How does caste affect entrepreneurship? birth versus worth
研究印度种姓制度对创业的影响,发现历史上受歧视种姓的企业家资本平均收入产品更高,尤其在小型企业和金融欠发达地区,这种差异源于信贷获取不平等,导致人均产出降低5.6%。
Informal institutions play an important role in resource allocation across entrepreneurs in developing countries. I focus on the caste system in India and document three stylized facts. First, entrepreneurs of historically disadvantaged castes have a higher average revenue product of capital, arpk, relative to high-caste enterprises. Second, cross-caste differences in arpk are driven by small enterprises. Third, the majority of these differences are concentrated in financially underdeveloped regions. In a model of entrepreneurship, I find that the cross-caste differences in arpk are explained by differences in access to credit and that such asymmetries reduce output per capita by 5.6%.