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The study attempts to explore the determinants of financial inclusion. Subsequently, it examines the effect of financial inclusion on financial well-being of marginalized street vendors in India.

The demand-side analysis of measuring financial inclusion with a sample of 371 marginalized street vendors is adopted. Both exploratory and descriptive research designs are employed in this study. The primary data collection is done by administering the structured interview schedule by using a convenience sampling technique. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) are performed to describe the latent constructs and their hypothetical relationships with adequate empirical evidence.

Out of five dimensions of financial inclusion considered for the study, accessibility, availability, usage and affordability are found to be significant determinants of financial inclusion; however, the financial literacy dimension is found statistically insignificant. Further, the study results confirm that financial inclusion contributes substantially to the well-being of marginalized street vendors.

The outcome of the study will facilitate all the stakeholders including policymakers and financial institutions to enact policy guidelines to ensure financial well-being of the marginalized street vendors through financial inclusion initiatives.

Financial well-being through financial inclusion is possible even without the effect of financial literacy from the unorganized sector perspective specifically marglianized street vendors. Thus, it adds new dimension to the existing literature on demand side analysis of measuring financial inclusion.

Recently, the Government of India has emphasized digital financial inclusion for promoting cashless transactions with a vision to transform India from a traditional cash-based economy into a cashless economy. Technology-driven payment apps are facilitated greater access to cashless financial services and improve the speed, efficiency, accuracy and effectiveness of financial transactions. This study aims to explore the determinants of quick response (QR) code mobile payment (m-payment) adoption intention among marginalized street vendors in India.

The proposed research model was tested using 320 responses from QR code m-payment users. An interview schedule was performed using the structured questionnaire from marginalized street vendors by adopting a purposive sampling technique. The proposed research framework of this study developed on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). In addition to the existing variables proposed in the UTAUT model, three more variables have been added, namely, digital financial literacy (DFL), personal innovativeness (PI) and perceived trust (PT). Besides, the study used confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling techniques to analyze the data.

This study confirms that factors such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, PT and customers’ DFL are significant determinants of street vendors’ intention to use QR code m-payment services. However, social influence and PI have shown an insignificant relationship with adopting a QR code m-payment system.

The results provide insights for policymakers and service providers. Specifically, government and bankers design promotional campaigns emphasizing the ease of use, perceived benefits, security and faster business transactions to accept and use the QR code m-payment system to encourage prospective users to achieve a cashless economy.

Many prior studies have widely concentrated on m-payment adoption intention in India. However, only a few studies have attempted to examine the factors influencing the adoption of QR code m-payment services among merchants from emerging economies. There is a dearth of studies on QR code adoption from an unorganized sector perspective, specifically marginalized street vendors. Therefore, this study explicitly examines the extent to which the determinants of adoption intention toward QR code-based m-payment services among marginalized street vendors within the framework of the extended UTAUT model by incorporating DFL, PI and PT. The findings of this study contribute, theoretically and practically, to the existing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to explore resilience strategies of Chinese street vendors in a shifted regulatory policy environment from a strength-based and entrepreneurial perspective.

Drawing upon nine in-depth interviews and naturalistic observations in an urban village of Guangzhou, China, the study empirically investigates how unregulated sidewalk-based hawkers struggle to survive against socioeconomic adversities compared with regulated vendors’ operations in a legitimate transitional market.

Mirroring a sub-group of rural-to-urban migrants, street vendors espouse subtle strategies centering on purposefulness, resourcefulness and hardiness, which are instantiated through family obligation, sales tactics, merchandising techniques, technology application, trading flexibility, moral sentiment and assistance network. As such, street entrepreneurs are both enacting and constructing resilience in response to specific challenging contexts including impoverishment, operating cost inflation, contingent loss, fierce competition, market uncertainty, intensive workloads, municipal inspection and arbitrary governance practice of village cooperative organization.

Notwithstanding its limited generalizability, the result sheds light on crystallization of street vendors’ resilience and informs social services and policy remedies.

The study provides a frame of reference to examine the interplay of resilience theory from psychology and entrepreneurship thesis from the field of business management by adding new evidence to the research on “entrepreneurial resilience” and potentially serves as a catalyst to enrich existing literature with an integrated perspective to comprehend the coping process of these necessity-driven micro-enterprise operators. The antagonistic understanding of informal economy is so predominating that it obscures structural oppression undermining social justice, whereas the spirit of self-reliance among street entrepreneurs is ought to be respected.

The spread of COVID-19 has shaken people’s lives around the globe in an extraordinary way, threatening health, disrupting economic activity, and spreading fear and anxiety. However, the outbreak originated as a public health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic has also developed into a global economic crisis, with severe and potentially lasting impacts on employment and trade. The chapter investigates the changing dynamics of street economy during the COVID-19 era. In this study, one of the biggest but overlooked stakeholders of the street economy, municipality’s perception through the constables regarding the street vendors will be investigated. It is known that the worldwide epidemic of COVID has caused such problems as layoffs, depreciation of money, the global crisis, foreign trade coming to a halt, and, thus, it reduces individuals’ purchasing power. Therefore, it is considered that the number of individuals who are parties to the street economy has increased. This research aims to understand and discuss how COVID-19 has been affected to the street economy from the point of view of the constables, who are one of the most important stakeholders of the issue. A qualitative depth interviews were conducted to the constables of İzmir Municipality in Turkey. A semi-structured interview questions were applied and the data were analysed with the NVIVO program to understand the changing dynamics of street economy during the COVID-19 era in Turkey. The research aims to support and guide the local authorities with fresh data from the field regarding the changing characteristics of street economy.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between income shock suffered during the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent financial well-being (FWB) of Indian adults, mediated by financial resilience (FR) and psychological resilience (PR).

The authors propose a conceptual model for the relationship between income shock and FWB, with FR and PR as mediator variables. The authors consider four dimensions of financial resilience: economic resources, financial inclusion, financial knowledge and social capital. This study uses a unidimensional scale for PR. Data were collected from 370 respondents from 11 cities across India. Structural equation models were built to test the proposed hypotheses.

Income shock was negatively associated with FWB. Estimated path coefficients for FR and PR were statistically significant and confirmed a mediating role. Among the four dimensions of financial resilience, only economic resources were positively associated with FWB. The mediation relation between economic resources and FWB was larger than PR.

Since convenience sampling was used to collect data, the results of this study are indicative but not generalizable.

For individuals who suffered income shocks during the pandemic, adequate economic resources are crucial for FWB. Governmental disbursements, personal savings and medical or life insurance could provide an adequate safety net.

There are no extant studies that examine the association between income shocks and FWB in the pandemic, and this study contributes to the literature.

This paper examines the determinants of happiness index ratings in European countries over 8 time points using unique data from the Eurostat, World Bank and World Happiness Reports.

To examine the determinants of happiness index ratings for EU-27 countries over the period 2012–2019, panel ordinary least square and quantile regression model are used to data obtained from all sample.

Evidence from European data on happiness index generate some important key outcomes; economic outcomes levels with both current taxes and inflation rate have a positively relationship on happiness index ratings (HIR), while total employment rate has a significant negativity on HIR. Additionally, in a quantile panel regression of 27 countries, the impact of financial inclusion on happiness index looks to change with a country's level of income. On the macroeconomic level, gross domestic product (GDP) improves the happiness index for the individual under certain conditions. Thus, GDP on 0.25th quantile levels positively and significantly impacts the HIR for leader countries.

Empirical evidence suggests that macro-economic variables and the labor market proxies of the countries play a key role in determining HIR as well.

The study extends the literature on developed countries and suggestions a particular perspective on the relationship between economic outcomes and happiness index. This study offers two main originalities: it simultaneously examines the “happiness-macroeconomic level” and “happiness-employment status dimension”, and it uses a quantile regression approach, including financial inclusion variation.

Existing literature shows conflicting views regarding street vendors in a place. They are considered both positive and negative. Their existence has rarely been examined from a combination of place-making and power theories. This research aimed (a) to identify the actors who transform Borobudur Food and Craft Market and the sources of power and actions carried out by these actors and (b) to find out the views of other actors about street vendors.

The design used in this study was an instrumental case study. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews and photo documentation. The sampling technique used was purposive sampling with several participants of as many as 12 persons consisting of 4 street vendors, 4 employees of the state-owned enterprise in charge of the Borobudur tourist site and 4 tourists. The data were analyzed through two-phased coding. To improve the credibility, participant validation was conducted.

This study made new findings. First, in a place, there are formal and informal place-making actors who transform the place with the sources of power they have and the acts of power they carry out. Both formal and informal actors can perform coercive and noncoercive acts of power. This shows the existence of contested power in a setting. Second, street vendors are viewed positively as well as negatively. Comprehensive policies need to be implemented by key actors to minimize the negative sides of the existence of street vendors and optimize the benefits from them.

Data collection was carried out when the Indonesian government implemented restrictions on public activities during the pandemic. At that time, tourism activities were very limited. In the future, researchers can use other techniques such as the self-report visual method because not all street vendors are fluent in expressing their opinions in interviews.

Both central and regional governments and local stakeholders can synergistically carry out a dialogue, seeking common ground to accommodate each other's interests. The next steps are to consistently apply the policies resulting from the dialogue and ensure that each actor plays a role according to their respective portion and authority.

Previous studies typically explain power as the possession of resources and relational attributes. This study has taken a different point of view, namely about acts of power contested in a certain place. Actors who have power are not always those who have formal legitimacy. Informal parties are considered powerless despite having power.

Although there have been many articles and books on street vendors, ambulant and fixed, around the world, and many works written about them in Mexico, little has been done on the ubiquitous ambulant beach vendors in tourist centers.

This paper offers an analysis of the backgrounds, levels of contentment, and aspirations of 25 women beach vendors interviewed in Acapulco in 2010.

A third of the women beach vendors had fathers who were peasants, and others had grandparents who were. Thus the article shows light on the fate of some of the offspring of a dispossessed peasantry. Far more than half of the women vendors were very content with their self-employment vending wares on the beach, a few because they could set their own hours, and a few because they had no boss. Other’s contentment was linked to the fact that they could help support their children. Part of this help meant keeping them in school. This was true whether the women were married, widowed, or abandoned. Not all were content, however, and this underscores the importance of their income to their households. Most of the women, though not all, had aspirations for more education and better work, whether in the formal or the informal economy.

The women can be seen as marginalized because of their current poverty, and many because of past poverty leading to a lack of educational opportunities when they were young. They value education for their children.

To summarize the shocks and stresses that peasants in Mexico have been subjected to since the 1940s and to examine the responses of sons of peasants working as semi-informal beach vendors in Cabo San Lucas as to what they define as the worst problems of the peasantry in their hometowns.

This chapter offers an analysis of the responses of 32 sons of peasants interviewed on Medano Beach in Cabo San Lucas in October of 2012 partially as concerns whether they would like to be peasants themselves and as to what they define as the worst problems of the peasantry in their hometowns.

Twenty-five of the thirty-two vendors interviewed would be happy to be peasants. According to all of the vendors, the overwhelming problems facing the peasantry were primarily droughts or floods (related to climate change) and lack of government aid (related to neoliberalization).

The peasantry in Mexico is being and has been marginalized both by a number of stresses and shocks, currently identified by some of those at risk as factors related to climate change and neoliberalization.

Women migrant street vendors are considered a vulnerable group in societies, thereby being hard hit during a crisis. This research aims to examine effects of COVID-19 social distancing on their businesses, consumption, health and general lives; solutions and mitigation strategies that they adopted in response to these adverse effects; and their recovery of socioeconomic lives after social distancing.

The data were collected from the women migrant street vendors in urban Vietnam. Descriptive statistics, probit model and ordered probit model were used for empirical analysis.

Women migrant street vendors faced immense challenges during social distancing. They also lacked solutions to sustain their businesses and were forced to resort to various mitigation strategies. Their socioeconomic lives were also slow to recover after social distancing. In addition, those experiencing greater business loss faced more adverse effects during social distancing and have more difficulties in the recovery of socioeconomic lives after social distancing.

This research highlights the importance of redesigning social policies to support women migrant street vendors during crises. It also emphasizes the need to formalize and legalize their activities to foster sustainable and inclusive development in the long term.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first attempts to explore the effects of COVID-19 social distancing on the women migrant street vendors and to examine how they respond to these adverse effects.