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Does gender matter for firm performance ? evidence from Eastern Europe and Central Asia

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Sabarwal, Shwetlena
Terrell, Katherine

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Abstract

Using 2005 firm level data for 26 countries in Eastern and Central Europe, this paper estimates performance gaps between male and female-owned businesses, while controlling for location by industry and country. The findings show that female entrepreneurs have a significantly smaller scale of operations (as measured by sales revenues) and are less efficient in terms of total factor productivity, although the difference is small. However, women entrepreneurs generate the same amount of profit per unit of revenue as men. Although both male and female entrepreneurs in the region are sub-optimally small, women's returns to scale are significantly larger than men's, implying that women would gain more from increasing their scale. The authors 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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Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 4705.

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Date of creation: 01 Sep 2008
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Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4705

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Related research
Keywords: Access to Finance; Banks&Banking Reform; Gender and Health; Gender and Law;

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  3. Alexander Muravyev & Dorothea Schäfer & Oleksandr Talavera, 2007. "Entrepreneurs' Gender and Financial Constraints: Evidence from International Data," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 706, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Verheul, Ingrid & Thurik, Roy, 2001. " Start-Up Capital: "Does Gender Matter?"," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 329-45, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. David G. Blanchflower & Phillip B. Levine & David J. Zimmerman, 2003. "Discrimination in the Small-Business Credit Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 930-943, 09. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Rosa, Peter & Carter, Sara & Hamilton, Daphne, 1996. " Gender as a Determinant of Small Business Performance: Insights from a British Study," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 8(6), pages 463-78, December.
  7. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2005. "Individual Risk Attitudes: New Evidence from a Large, Representative, Experimentally-Validated Survey," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 511, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Niels Bosma & Mirjam van Praag & Roy Thurik & Gerrit de Wit, 2004. "The Value of Human and Social Capital Investments for the Business Performance of Startups," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 227-236, October. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Cavalluzzo, Ken S & Cavalluzzo, Linda C, 1998. "Market Structure and Discrimination: The Case of Small Businesses," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(4), pages 771-92, November.
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  15. Alicia Robb & John Wolken, 2002. "Firm, owner, and financing characteristics: differences between female- and male-owned small businesses," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2002-18, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  17. Suresh de Mel & David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2007. "Returns to Capital in Microenterprises: Evidence from a Field Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 2934, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  18. Ken Cavalluzzo & John Wolken, 2005. "Small Business Loan Turndowns, Personal Wealth, and Discrimination," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(6), pages 2153-2178, November. [Downloadable!]
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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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