Occupational prestige or job status may induce people to remain unemployed even when jobs are available. Thus measured unemployment will always have a voluntary component. Accumulated wealth in a family tends to increase the opportunity cost of job search, more so in a world where job status is...

Rent seeking within the vast informal segment of the developing world is a relatively underdexplored topic in the interface of labor market policies and public economics. Moreover, how rent seeking and corruption within the informal segment is affected by economic reforms targeted for the formal...

We provide an analysis of enforcement policies applicable to formal sector in dual labor markets. We use a framework with heterogeneous firms, endogenous determination of informal wage and politically dictated enforcement strategies. Firms which operate both in the formal and informal sectors do...

India experienced one of the strictest lockdowns during COVID-19 and sections of the workforce seemed overwhelmingly disadvantaged. Given substantial poverty still, marginalized daily wage labor and gendered outcomes in the context of India, economic shocks are expected to have disparate...

The ambiguity in the relationship between self-employment and educational attainment is well documented in the literature. Using an extensive individual level dataset from Periodic Labor Force Survey, we estimate the probability of being self-employed in India based on educational attainments....

Available wisdom suggests that a negative relationship prevails between economic freedom and perceived corruption among firms. However, the relationship is far from linear and a number of complex interactions make it fairly nuanced. We show that greater competition may accentuate the problem of...

Traditionally, firms in India have shown a low preference towards debt financing, despite its advantages. Using panel data from 450 firms during 1992-93 and 2003-04, we attempt to identify factors which could explain the pattern of financing of manufacturing firms in India and the key...

Does higher educational attainment lead to greater participation in self-employment? Available studies agree and disagree on this subject through various explanations. We invoke an empirical example from the experiences of immigrants moving from poor countries to rich countries. Further, we...

One of the well-known barriers to development is persistence of disadvantage among communities. The lack of occupational and therefore upward social mobility continues to restrain households from achieving socially desirable outcomes. This paper studies the effect of short-term internal...

The phased elimination of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement has been one of the most compelling trade policy reforms of the early twenty-first century, and has brought in significant changes in the industrial structures of the countries of the global south. The textile and clothing industry is the...