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Africa's businesswomen – underfunded or underperforming?

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  • Ackah, Charles
  • Görg, Holger
  • Hanley, Aoife
  • Hornok, Cecilia

Abstract

While the recent success of Africa’s ‘Lionesses’ – successful female entrepreneurs – is internationally celebrated, less is known about how liquidity can fuel the success of the ‘Lionesses’ and other businesswomen. Using information from a panel of over 800 male- and female-owned businesses in Ghana (ISSER-IGC survey), we capture a measure of underfunding, in addition to data on supplier credit, equity and other finance sources. Our regressions reveal a female-to-male productivity gap of between − 11 and − 19 per cent, values similar to estimates for other African countries. However, when financial constraints are taken into account, the gender performance gap disappears. Accordingly, female business owners who indicate that funding is not a problem are associated with higher productivity than males, all things equal. In a finding new to the literature, our regressions reveal the importance of supplier credit for Africa’s businesswomen.

Suggested Citation

  • Ackah, Charles & Görg, Holger & Hanley, Aoife & Hornok, Cecilia, 2023. "Africa's businesswomen – underfunded or underperforming?," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 301879, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkie:301879
    DOI: 10.1007/s11187-023-00792-0
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Fafchamps, Marcel & Schündeln, Matthias, 2013. "Local financial development and firm performance: Evidence from Morocco," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 15-28.
    3. Gabriele Rovigatti & Vincenzo Mollisi, 2018. "Theory and practice of total-factor productivity estimation: The control function approach using Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 18(3), pages 618-662, September.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Female-owned businesses; Liquidity; Productivity; Supplier credit; Africa; Ghana;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

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