中文摘要
我们构建了一个框架，用以量化印度女性在劳动参与(LFP)和创业方面面临的壁垒。我们发现，女性面临巨大的劳动参与壁垒，且女性创业者通过雇用工人扩大企业规模的成本更高。然而，女性创业者在一个方面具有优势：雇用女性工人。我们表明，这一现象并非由女性就业的行业构成所驱动。与这一模式一致，即使不明确以提高女性劳动参与率为目标，促进女性创业的政策也能显著提高女性劳动参与率。反事实模拟表明，消除女性创业者面临的所有超额壁垒，将大幅提高女性所有企业的占比、女性劳动参与率和收入，并为整体经济带来可观收益。这些收益源于更高的劳动参与率、更高的实际工资和利润，以及资源重新配置：此前因免受女性竞争而得到庇护的低生产率男性所有企业，被此前遭排斥于经济体系之外的高生产率女性所有企业所取代。
Abstract
We develop a framework for quantifying barriers to labor force participation (LFP) and entrepreneurship faced by women in India. We find substantial barriers to LFP, and higher costs of expanding businesses through hiring workers for women entrepreneurs. However, there is one area where female entrepreneurs have an advantage: the hiring of female workers. We show that this is not driven by the sectoral composition of female employment. Consistent with this pattern, policies promoting female entrepreneurship can significantly increase female LFP even without explicitly targeting female LFP. Counterfactual simulations indicate that removing all excess barriers faced by women entrepreneurs would substantially increase the fraction of female‐owned firms, female LFP, earnings, and generate substantial gains for the economy. These gains are due to higher LFP, higher real wages and profits, and reallocation: low productivity male‐owned firms previously sheltered from female competition are replaced by higher productivity female‐owned firms previously excluded from the economy.