Caste Networks in the Modern Indian Economy

Kaivan Munshi ()
Additional contact information
Kaivan Munshi: University of Cambridge

Chapter Chapter 2 in Development in India, 2016, pp 13-37 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Social networks support diverse economic activities in developing countries, using the information and the social sanctions at their disposal to sustain cooperation and to solve market imperfections. In India, the natural unit around which networks would be organized is the endogamous (sub) caste or jati. Caste networks have, indeed, historically supported, and continue to support economic activity and mobility. While this provides a novel economic explanation for the persistence of caste in modern India, a balanced assessment of the contribution of these networks to growth and the macro economy must also account for the static and dynamic inefficiencies that they generate.

Keywords: Schooling Choice; Insurance Network; Occupational Mobility; Lower Caste; Commitment Problem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:isbchp:978-81-322-2541-6_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9788132225416

DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-2541-6_2

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in India Studies in Business and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().