Lending to female-owned small enterprises in Sri Lanka and Ghana [1]
Chris Woodruff (Oxford University) finds that investments in small enterprises yield high returns at 6% per month. Interestingly, these returns are heterogeneous across genders; the male-owned enterprises see returns higher than 6% per month, while female-owned enterprises see average monthly returns of 0%. A similar study in Ghana finds comparable heterogeneous gender effects across firms. Chris argues that an explanation for this, supported by a growing body of research, could be that money loaned to females is often re-allocated within the household to the males.
Date Published:
Monday, December 18, 2017
Tags:
cash transfers [2]
self-employed [3]
enterprise [4]
SME [5]
small business [6]
investment [8]
female-owned [9]
microloans [10]
Cover Image:
Topic:
Firms & Trade [12]
Photo Credit:
Sandiooses