The importance of capital in closing the entrepreneurial gender gap: a longitudinal study of lottery wins

Sarah Flèche, Anthony Lepinteur and Nattavudh Powdthavee

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: Can capital constraints explain why there are more male than female entrepreneurs in most societies? We study this issue by exploiting longitudinal data on lottery winners. Comparing between large to small winners, we find that an increase in lottery win in period t-1 significantly increases the likelihood of becoming self-employed in period t. This windfall effect is statistically the same in magnitude for men and women; a one percent increase in exogenous income increases the probability of female self-employment by 0.6 percentage points, which is approximately 10% of the gender entrepreneurial gap. These results suggest that we can causally reduce the gender entrepreneurial gap by improving women's access to capital that might not be as readily available to the aspiring female entrepreneurs as it is to male entrepreneurs.

Keywords: gender inequality; self-employment; lottery wins; BHPS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J21 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-04-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-eur, nep-fdg, nep-gen and nep-lma
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https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1762.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The importance of capital in closing the entrepreneurial gender gap: A longitudinal study of lottery wins (2021)
Working Paper: The importance of capital in closing the entrepreneurial gender gap: a longitudinal study of lottery wins (2021)
Working Paper: The importance of capital in closing the entrepreneurial gender gap: a longitudinal study of lottery wins (2021)
Working Paper: The Importance of Capital in Closing the Entrepreneurial Gender Gap: A Longitudinal Study of Lottery Wins (2021)
Working Paper: The importance of capital in closing the entrepreneurial gender gap: a longitudinal study of lottery wins (2021)
Working Paper: The Importance of Capital in Closing the Entrepreneurial Gender Gap: A Longitudinal Study of Lottery Wins (2021)
Working Paper: The importance of capital in closing the entrepreneurial gender gap: a longitudinal study of lottery wins (2021)
Working Paper: The Importance of Capital in Closing the Entrepreneurial Gender Gap: A Longitudinal Study of Lottery Wins (2021)
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