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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

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Sabarwal, Shwetlena & Terrell, Katherine, 2008. "Does gender matter for firm performance ? evidence from Eastern Europe and Central Asia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4705, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4705
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Access to Finance; Banks&Banking Reform; Gender and Health; Gender and Law;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance

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