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Purpose: The primary objective of the paper is to examine the asymmetric Cointegration and asymmetric causality between financial development and poverty alleviation on annual data in Indian context over the period from 1980 to 2019. Design/methodology/approach: First nonlinearity test by Brooks et al. (1999) is applied to ascertain the nonlinear behavior of the variables used. Once the nonlinear behavior of variables is confirmed, asymmetric and nonlinear unit root tests by Kapetanios and Shin (2008) are applied to check for the order of integration of selected variables. Next, nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model (NARDL) is employed to analyze the asymmetric Cointegration. Finally, Hatemi-j- asymmetric causality tests is applied to work out the direction of asymmetric causality. Findings: The empirical findings document the existence of asymmetries in the short-run as well as long-run between poverty and financial development. The asymmetry reveals that negative financial development shocks leave a more profound impact on poverty alleviation than their positive equivalents. The findings of Wald's test also confirm the presence of asymmetric Cointegration. The asymmetric cumulative dynamic multipliers used to examine the behavior of asymmetries and adjustments with respect to time lend credence to the results calculated using NARDL estimator. This result exhibits the robustness of the model. Furthermore, the result emanating from recently introduced asymmetric causality test reveals a unidirectional asymmetric causality between negative shocks in financial development and poverty. The findings of the present study necessitate the need for investigating asymmetric and nonlinear effects in finance–poverty nexus, which existent literature has completely neglected, in order to have relevant policy conclusions. Research limitations/implications: The study used "Per capita consumption expenditure" as a measure for poverty due to lack of continuous time series data on headcount ratio. In future, researchers can extend this study by incorporating headcount ratio as a measure of poverty in their respective works. There is further scope of research on this issue by finding out the impact of formal and informal sources of credit on poverty separately. A panel data study for developing countries over a period of time could further confirm/negate the findings of the present study. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge none of the studies in Indian context has scrutinized asymmetric and nonlinear impact of financial development on poverty. To dredge up asymmetric structures at work, the authors have used the highly celebrated NARDL estimator. To enrich the existent body of knowledge along the lines of asymmetric (nonlinear) linkages, the authors have also used recently introduced asymmetric causality test by Hatemi-j-(2012) to find out the direction asymmetric causality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the relationship between dowries – wealth transfers from the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage – and individual-level poverty in rural India. Based on the estimates of a collective household model, we show that the share of household consumption expenditure allocated to a woman is strongly associated with the dowry she paid at the time of her marriage. We compute poverty rates separately for women and men and find that women's poverty relative to men decreases with dowry. Moreover, women who paid dowries are less likely to be poor relative to women who did not, even when their households' consumption expenditures are the same. Our counterfactual policy analysis indicates that abolishing or reducing dowries (through anti-dowry laws or taxes, for example) may have the unintended effect of aggravating intra-household inequality and increasing women's risk of living in poverty after marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the economic determinants of female-owned proprietorships for 52 metro cities in India. The National Sample Survey (NSS) unit-level data are used for the analysis. The descriptive results show that women's proprietorship is much lower than its counterpart. The Probit regression results at the individual level show that women entrepreneurs do not have a bank account or computer but use the internet, are not registered under any act or authority, and do not expand considerably. They operate within household premises with a limited number of months and duration of a day, undertaking mainly contract basis. They also face several problems that hinder their activities. City-level factors such as work participation rate, consumption expenditure, higher levels of general and technical degrees, and vocational training are essential. The likelihood of becoming a female entrepreneur is negatively impacted by the two agglomeration variables of population size and participation in mixed activity. City-level poverty and inequality also adversely affect it. State-level Human Development Index, Gender Development Index, and Gender Inequality Index are also significant. Finally, we propose important policies to enable the city environment to improve women's entrepreneurship activities for higher and sustainable economic development. • Female-owned entrepreneurship (FOE) is essential for sustainable and inclusive economic growth in developing countries. • The agglomeration size, unequal economic distribution, and less female-friendly society discourage becoming FOE. • Knowledge spillovers, labour pooling, availability of public services, and infrastructure encourage FOE. • Cities need to increase investment, employment, level of education, and delivery of public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]