Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/215322 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12926
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Limited access to finance is one of the major barriers for women entrepreneurs in Africa. This paper presents a model of start-ups in which firms' sales and profits depend on their productivity and access to credit. However, due to the lack of collateral assets such as land, female entrepreneurs have more constrained access to credit than do men. Testing the model on data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys in Eswatini, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe, we find land ownership to be important for female entrepreneurial performance in terms of sales levels. This finding suggests that the small Southern African economies would benefit from removing obstacles to women's land tenure and enabling financial institutions to lend against movable collateral. While land ownership is linked with higher sales levels, it seems less critical for sales growth and innovation where access to short term loans for working capital seems to be key.
Subjects: 
entrepreneurial sales
innovation
credit
land
gender
Africa
JEL: 
G21
L26
D24
O17
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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