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Department of Economics

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Browsing Department of Economics by Subject "artisanal production"

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    Three essays on artisanal production: exploring topics on gender, caste and institutions
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Dasgupta, Satyaki, author; Vasudevan, Ramaa, advisor; Miller, Ray, committee member; Braunstein, Elissa, committee member; Cavdar, Gamze, committee member
    The development of the handicraft sector in India is a story of tradition, history and resistance. This sector became the bearer of nationalistic movement against colonialism. Social and personal identity linked to artisanal production makes this a unique form of production. Artisanal production is one of the largest employment generation sectors as well as a crucial source of foreign exchange. However, artisans suffer from acute poverty, severe indebtedness and have been forced to leave their crafts. Handicrafts experience contradictory forces where modernisation leads to the demise of traditional crafts on the one hand, and the state and civil society/ non-government organizations (NGO) try to revive the art forms in a bid to patronise culture. In this thesis, we explore dimensions of artisanal production related to gender, caste and institutions. The first chapter analyses the impact that location and region (rural/urban) of work on the earnings of women self-employed artisans. We use Periodic Labour Force Survey 2017-18 and 2018-19 to run a pooled cross-sectional regression for this purpose. We hypothesize that women workers working outside of their homes would earn more than home-based workers, and that urban workers would earn more than their rural counterparts. However, our results suggest that even though urban premium can be availed by every other category of women workers, women artisans in urban areas do not earn more than rural artisans. The chapter posits that this puzzling finding can be explained by the preservation of the historic division of labour associated with crafts, which has solidified with time because of romanticization and upholding the distinctive role of crafts in the Indian anti-colonial movement. This persistence relegates women's crafts as leisure work and prevents them from creating the relevant networks and availing the urban premium. We also find that women working away from their homes earn more than home-based workers. The second chapter looks at the difference in wages between Upper caste and Scheduled Caste self-employed artisans. Artisans and craftspeople have been historically classified as 'criminal tribes' and largely form the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Other Backward Class (OBC). The current study uses pooled cross-sectional data from Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2017-18 and 2018-19 to compare the wages of the Upper Caste (UC) and SC self-employed artisans, by making use of a Mincerian type regression model. We check if, controlling for all other potential determinant of wages, there is any significant difference in wages earned by UC and SC artisans. We find that in the urban areas UC artisans earn significantly more than SC artisans. However, in the rural areas there does not appear to be any significant difference. We argue that the overall low wages in the rural areas cause this result. The sample is restricted to a relatively low-paying and low 'skilled' occupation, implying that the difference is largely due to the something specific to SCs. We check for this hypothesis by running an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, which finds that, the endowment effect is insignificant whereas the unexplained difference is significant. Previous literature has found the existence of sticky floor (a situation where earning gaps decline with increase in earnings quantiles) while comparing earning of SC and UC workers. To check for the presence of the sticky floor between UC and SC, we run a quantile regression. Our findings suggest that, there does not exist a sticky floor in earnings of the artisans, and that the gap has a slight upward trend as we move from the lower income percentiles to the higher percentiles. The absence of sticky floor among artisans can be explained by the likely difference in experiences of artisans belonging to the higher percentiles of income. They are likely to derive their earnings from orders from government organisations and other private organisations like NGOs. UC artisans are likely to benefit from their better access to social networks which can enable them to get better market access and higher returns to their products. To inform discussion around policies about SC artisans, we further analyse the lived experiences of artisans from the deprived caste through a primary survey among deprived caste artisans who are involved in making bamboo crafts in the state of West Bengal. Historically, artisans involved in bamboo craft have generally been considered low in status and belonged to a 'polluting' group. This analysis brings out a more complete story about deprivation and neglect that artisans from deprived caste face beyond wage discrimination. We explore the role that state has played in reproduction of a caste-based traditional crafts, and whether the next generation would be following this craft. The third chapter looks at how institutions and artisans interact which may lead to reproduction and evolution of the crafts. We use primary data to cover elite and quotidian crafts from each of the six districts, covering 480 artisans across 51 villages and towns involved in 26 different types of crafts. We employ a developmental evolutionary economic geography framework which integrates institutional approach to geographical economics, geographical political economy, and evolutionary approach to economic development. These three strands all seek to explain uneven economic development across geographical areas. The skills of the artisans are generally passed down through generations and artisanal production is often found in clusters in towns and villages. We analyse the ways in which economic development is formed by institutional mediation and interactions between artisans and institutions, and how the economic landscape characterised by path dependency evolves incrementally. An important contribution that our results make is that contrary to general expectations, crafts can survive and achieve increase in demand. The institutions that are responsible for this can vary. States and NGOs play an important role in imparting trainings to artisans leading to evolution of crafts from quotidian to elite crafts and can cater to newer markets. This entails a movement of the artisans from an old path of quotidian craft to a new path of elite crafts. Institutions like presence of workers' cooperatives and spillover of knowledge can also help in the survival of crafts. Crafts, however, should not be romanticised and the survival of the crafts does not necessarily have to be a desirable situation. Some crafts survive because of social norms which relegates female labour as secondary in the household, and thus these crafts survive because of cheap labour. Some crafts also survive when the next generation also gets involved in this craft because there are no other jobs available. The current study contributes by highlighting institutions which can enable artisanal production to survive, reproduce, and evolve. To our knowledge, this is the first study which applies development economic geography framework to a primary data in the Indian context. We talk about how these historically specific paths can be overcome and evolve into new pathways through the interactions between the agents and the institutions. The current dissertation attempts to connect three related aspects of artisanal production in India. Artisanal production is related to maintaining group memberships and social roles, where crafts have gender and caste roles. Caste and gender-based crafts are associated with exploitation in the larger labour market. Looking at the earnings of women and deprived caste artisans, therefore, become significant in contributing to the discussion of artisanal production in India. Further, an important facet of artisanal production is the survival and reproduction of this form of production. Formal and informal institutions play an important role in this process. The policies throughout the third chapter can be seen to something that required to take into account the particularities of the problems and local contexts and experiences of the artisans. The study also notes that romanticisation of crafts should be done with caution, as the survival of a craft may happen because of undesirable institutions and exploitation based on gender and caste may persist with such survival.