Abstract:-

Does improved access to financial sources improve entrepreneurship for lower caste groups? To explore this issue, we construct a novel dataset of village-level financial access defined in terms of distance of each un-banked village to the nearest banked-centre and merge it with village-level enterprise data for 1998, 2005 and 2013. Using a difference-in-differences research design, we explore how proximity to a banked-centre within 5km of an un-banked village influences entrepreneurship across four major castes groups (General, Other Backward Castes (OBC), Scheduled Caste (SC), and Scheduled Tribes (ST)); and whether there is any role of credit channel. Further, we explore whether marginalised castes (OBC,SC, ST) move into the sectors which are predominantly occupied by the general caste.

(jointly with Samarth Gupta and Sushanta Mallick)