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Anirban Mukherjee

Bio: Anirban Mukherjee is an academic researcher from University of Calcutta. The author has contributed to research in topics: Entrepreneurship & Caste. The author has an hindex of 4, co-authored 15 publications receiving 49 citations. Previous affiliations of Anirban Mukherjee include Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that an increase in crime against women, increases the non-pecuniary costs of traveling to work, particularly in a traditional society marked by stigma against victims of sexual crimes.

42 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors studied why the Indian banking caste Nattukottai Chettiar moved from caste-based banking to joint stock banking and argued that the advantages of the caste banking had two advantages over joint stock banks.
Abstract: This paper looks at the evolution of business practice of indigenous banking groups in colonial India. Specifically, it studies why in the early twentieth century, the Indian banking caste Nattukottai Chettiar moved from caste-based banking to joint stock banking. The paper argues that caste-based banking had two advantages over joint stock banking—caste-based monitoring of agents and reciprocity-based informal insurance within the caste. In the early twentieth century with the improvement of communication technology and expanding global trade, the caste banking lost both the edges. This prompted some of the caste bankers to move to joint stock banking. I provide a theoretical structure explaining the transition and provide evidence from archival and secondary sources in support of my theory.

8 citations

DOI
01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: In this article, the transition from kinship based or informal institutions to the law based or formal institutions was studied in early modern England and colonial India, and the authors found that the increase in social heterogeneity rendered the informal institutions ineffective and induced people to move to the formal institutions for resolving disputes.
Abstract: Economic development is characterized by the expansion of interpersonal trade which requires the institutions for contract enforcement. In order to sustain trade at a greater scale, a society needs to develop the formal institutions that can enforce contracts between strangers. Hence, economic development can be characterized by the development of formal institutions. My PhD dissertation seeks to identify factors that cause the transition from the kinship based or informal institutions to the law based or formal institutions. In order to compare the process of transition in a now developed country with that in a developing country, one case study from early modern England and one from colonial India are considered. In the context of early modern England, my thesis identifies such a transition in the credit and the legal institutions. I find that the increase in social heterogeneity in early modern England rendered the informal institutions ineffective and induced people to move to the formal institutions for resolving disputes. Consequently, formal institutions developed following a ’learning by doing’ mechanism. I develop a theoretical model that attempts to capture the historical accounts of this process, and generates some testable implications which I test using the archival data from The National Archive, England. The historical evidence is consistent with my model’s predictions. The study on early modern England, in my dissertation, is complemented by a study on Nattukottai Chettiars, a major banking caste from South India. In the first quarter of the twentieth century some of the Chettiar

7 citations

01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify factors which are responsible for sorting of students by socio-economic groups across different types of schools and elaborate on the sorting mechanism by analyzing schools choice decisions where parents decide on the following: whether to send their children to private/public school and conditional on that whether to sending them to good or bad school.
Abstract: Sorting of students over school type by their social standing creates the problem of social segregation and educational inequality. This paper, both theoretically and empirically, identifies factors which are responsible for sorting of students by socio-economic groups across different types of schools. We elaborate on the sorting mechanism by analyzing schools choice decisions where parents decide on the following: whether to send their children to private/public school and conditional on that whether to send them to good or bad school. We find that household characteristics such as the number of siblings, caste identity affect these two choices differently. For example we find that general caste students are more likely to attend private school but within the private category they are more likely to end up in bad schools. We develop our theory using a two period household level optimization framework and validate the prediction using a school survey data (Young Lives Survey). ∗This is a preliminary draft †University of Calcutta. Email:bsukanta@gmail.com ‡Population Council, New Delhi. Email:aparajita.dasgupta@email.ucr.edu §University of Calcutta. Email:kumarjitm@hotmail.com ¶University of Calcutta. Email:anirban1976@gmail.com

7 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
26 May 2015
TL;DR: In this paper, the interaction between the formal court system and the informal loan network is examined and the authors theoretically and empirically examine how the interaction affects a household's decision to start a business.
Abstract: In this paper we theoretically and empirically examine how the interaction between the formal court system and the informal loan network affects a household’s decision to start a business. We find that when the formal court system is weak, expansion of informal credit network leads to the proliferation of business. However, with a sufficiently strong court system, expansion of the credit network has a negative effect on business prospects. This result is explained by the contradictions between formal laws and norms used by informal networks. JEL codes K12; L26; O17

2 citations


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TL;DR: As an example of how the current "war on terrorism" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says "permanently marked" the generation that lived through it and had a "terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century."
Abstract: The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

5,309 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, Headrick examines why the massive transfer of Western technology to European colonies did not spark an industrial revolution in those countries, and argues that the transfer of stock technology between 1850 and 1940 caused the traditional self-sufficient economies of the colonial regions to be stuck in a state of underdevelopment, a legacy which burdens these countries to this day.
Abstract: Daniel Headrick examines why the massive transfer of Western technology to European colonies did not spark an industrial revolution in those countries. Rather than spurring economic progress, he argues, the transfer of stock technology between 1850 and 1940 caused the traditional self-sufficient economies of the colonial regions to be stuck in a state of underdevelopment, a legacy which burdens these countries to this day.

233 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Using administrative data on phone calls to the helpline for domestic violence in Peru, it is found that the incidence rate of the calls increased by 48 percent between April and July 2020, with effects increasing over time.

179 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the relationship between economic development and female employment and argue that cultural norms help explain the large differences in female employment among countries at the same level of development.
Abstract: This article discusses cultural barriers to women’s participation and success in the labor market in developing countries. I begin by discussing the relationship between economic development and female employment and argue that cultural norms help explain the large differences in female employment among countries at the same level of development. I then examine several gender-related social norms that constrain women’s employment and present examples of policies aimed at overcoming these barriers. Some of the policies are designed to work around a norm, helping women to be more successful in the labor market despite it, while others attempt to change the norms. There is evidence that both approaches can be effective in increasing women’s labor market participation and earnings. Policy-making that is attuned to cultural norms is a promising avenue for narrowing gender gaps in the labor market.

87 citations