Escape Through Export? Women-Owned Enterprises, Domestic Discrimination, and Global Markets

Iain Osgood and Margaret Peters

Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2017, vol. 12, issue 2, 143-183

Abstract: Does globalization provide an escape from discriminatory legal and social institutions for women-owned enterprises? We develop an original test of this proposition based on a model of firm heterogeneity with discriminatory costs. Discriminatory institutions raise barriers to entry and increase costs of production, allowing only the most productive women-owned firms to survive. If the costs of discrimination are lower in export markets, the average surviving woman-owned firm is more likely to export and exports a higher proportion of total sales. Using a cross-national data set of firms, we show that while there are significantly fewer women-owned enterprises in countries with discriminatory institutions, these businesses export at higher rates. Global markets therefore provide an important, albeit imperfect, alternative to markets with poor protections of women's rights.

Keywords: Women-owned enterprises; Discrimination; International trade; Firm ownership; Gender and ethnicity; International political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00015177

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