Credit Access for Small Firms in the Euro Area: Does Gender Matter?

Maria Lucia Stefani and Valerio Vacca
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Maria Lucia Stefani: Bank of Italy

Chapter 4 in Access to Bank Credit and SME Financing, 2017, pp 83-119 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This paper uses ECB survey data to assess whether gender matters in small firms’ access to credit. Firms owned or managed by women (female firms) use smaller quantities and less heterogeneous sources of external financing than their male counterparts. Female firms apply for bank loans less frequently, as they more often anticipate rejection, and they experience a higher rejection rate. Econometric analysis shows that these different patterns are largely explained by the characteristics that make female firms structurally different from those led by men, without a significant gender effect. This paper also compares the main euro area countries within a homogeneous framework; weak evidence of gender discrimination appears in the supply of bank loans in Germany, Italy and Spain, while demand obstacles arise in France.

Keywords: Financial structure; Banking; Economics of gender; Small business finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:pmschp:978-3-319-41363-1_4

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-41363-1_4

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