Household Matters: Revisiting the Returns to Capital among Female Microentrepreneurs

Arielle Bernhardt, Erica Field, Rohini Pande and Natalia Rigol

American Economic Review: Insights, 2019, vol. 1, issue 2, 141-60

Abstract: Multiple field experiments report positive financial returns to capital shocks for male and not female microentrepreneurs. But these analyses overlook the fact that female entrepreneurs often reside with male entrepreneurs. Using data from experiments in India, Sri Lanka, and Ghana, we show that the observed gender gap in microenterprise responses does not reflect lower returns on investment, when measured at the household level. Instead, the absence of a profit response among female-run enterprises reflects the fact that women's capital is typically invested into their husband's enterprise. We cannot reject equivalence of household-level income gains for male and female capital shock recipients.

JEL-codes: G31 J16 L25 L26 O12 O16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20180444
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20180444 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=10512 (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20180444.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20180444.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aerins:v:1:y:2019:i:2:p:141-60

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review: Insights is currently edited by Amy Finkelstein

More articles in American Economic Review: Insights from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().