社会认同会制约农村创业吗？来自普惠金融作用的证据
Does social identity constrain rural entrepreneurship? Evidence on the role of financial inclusion
Journal of Development Economics · 2025 · [{"name": "Sandhya Garg", "affiliation": ["Institute of Economic Growth", "Institute of Finance and Banking"]}, {"name": "Samarth Gupta", "affiliation": ["Indian Institute of Management Calcutta"]}, {"name": "Sushanta Mallick", "affiliation": ["Queen Mary University of London"]}]
中文摘要
本文考察金融可及性的改善能否缓解社会身份对印度弱势种姓群体创业活动施加的约束。利用一个关于印度村庄及其与银行分支机构距离的新数据集，我们发现，更靠近银行分支机构显著增强了表列种姓（Scheduled Castes, SCs）在非农业部门的创业活动，尤其是在传统上由高种姓群体主导的部门中。这些发现在邻近性改善具有可信外生性的村庄中更为明显，这种外生性改善源于印度储备银行（RBI）2005年推出的银行分支机构扩张政策。然而，对于表列部落（Scheduled Tribes, STs）而言，金融可及性与企业内雇佣就业规模的扩大相关。在考察若干潜在机制后，我们发现这些效应主要由信贷获取驱动。总体而言，本文的研究结果凸显了金融普惠在打破根深蒂固的种姓职业隔离所伴随的僵化社会规范、促进印度更公平经济参与方面的潜力。
Abstract
This paper examines whether improved financial access can mitigate the constraints imposed by social identity on entrepreneurship among under-privileged caste groups in India. Using a novel dataset on Indian villages and their proximity to bank branches, we find that closer access to a bank branch significantly enhances entrepreneurial activity among Scheduled Castes (SCs) in non-agricultural sectors, especially in those sectors that are traditionally dominated by upper-caste groups. These findings are more pronounced in villages where the improvement in proximity was plausibly exogenous, resulting from the RBI's Bank Branch Expansion Policy of 2005. For Scheduled Tribes (STs), however, financial access is associated with a gain in the size of hired employment within enterprises. Exploring several mechanisms, we find that these effects are primarily driven by credit uptake. Overall, our findings highlight the potential of financial inclusion in breaking rigid social norms around the entrenched caste-based occupational segregation and promoting more equitable economic participation in India.