Finance & Private Sector Research

About

Countries

Data & Research

Learning

News

Projects & Operations

Publications

Topics

Home > Data & Research > Research > Programs > Finance & Private Se... > ImagebankContents

Female-owned firms in Latin America : characteristics, performance, and obstacles to growth

Author:	Bruhn, Miriam;	Collection Title:	Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 5122
Country:	Latin America;	Date Stored:	2009/12/17
Document Date:	2009/11/01	Document Type:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English	Major Sector:	Finance
Rel. Proj ID:	1W-Program Research Proposal In Finance -- -- P107616;	Region:	Latin America & Caribbean
Report Number:	WPS5122	Sub Sectors:	General finance sector
Volume No:	1 of 1

Summary: This paper examines the characteristics and performance of female-owned firms in Latin America. Data from firm surveys show that female-owned firms tend to be smaller than male-owned firms in terms of employees, sales, costs, and physical capital. Female-owned firms also have lower profits than male-owned firms, but for larger firms this difference disappears after controlling for labor and capital inputs. Medium-size and large female-owned firms are as productive as male-owned firms of the same size, although micro and small female-owned firms are less productive than male-owned firms. There is no evidence that the differences between female and male-owned firms are due to differences in access to finance or regulatory burdens. However, this paper finds a negative correlation between child care and household obligations and female-owned firm size and performance.


Official Documents Official, scanned versions of documents (may include signatures, etc.)
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 28 pages	Official version*	1.96 (approx.)
	Text	Text version**

	See documents related to this project

* The official version is derived from scanning the final, paper copy of the document and is the official,
archived version including all signatures, charts, etc.

** The text version is the OCR text of the final scanned version and is not an accurate representation of the final text.
It is provided solely to benefit users with slow connectivity.

Permanent URL for this page: http://go.worldbank.org/Y2LCO0EDT0