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Does Gender Matter for Firm Performance? Evidence from Eastern Europe and Central Asia

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Author Info
Sabarwal, Shwetlena () (World Bank)
Terrell, Katherine () (University of Michigan)

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Abstract

Using 2005 firm level data for 26 ECA countries, this paper estimates performance gaps between male- and female-owned businesses, while controlling for their location by industry and country. We find that female entrepreneurs have significantly smaller scale of operations (as measured by sales revenues) and are less efficient in terms of Total Factor Productivity (TFP), although this difference is very small. However, they generate the same amount of profit per unit of revenue as men. We find that while both male and female entrepreneurs in ECA are sub-optimally small, women's returns to scale are significantly larger than men's implying that they would gain more from increasing their scale. We argue that the main reasons for the sub-optimal size of female-owned firms are that they are both capital constrained and concentrated in industries with small firms.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3758.

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Length: 53 pages
Date of creation: Oct 2008
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3758

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Related research
Keywords: entrepreneurship; finance; gender; Eastern Europe; Central Asia;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Capital and Total Factor Productivity; Capacity
M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics
O12 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
O16 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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    Other versions:
  4. Ruta Aidis & Friederike Welter & David Smallbone & Nina Isakova, 2007. "Female entrepreneurship in transition economies: the case of Lithuania and Ukraine," Feminist Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 157-183. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
  6. Du Rietz, Anita & Henrekson, Magnus, 2000. " Testing the Female Underperformance Hypothesis," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
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    Other versions:
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    Other versions:
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  19. Fischer, Eileen M. & Reuber, A. Rebecca & Dyke, Lorraine S., 1993. "A theoretical overview and extension of research on sex, gender, and entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 151-168, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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