IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/globdv/v14y2023i2p357-384n2.html

Can Online Platforms Promote Women-Led Exporting Firms?

Author

Listed:
  • Poole Jennifer P.

    (American University, CESifo, and IZA, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, USA)

  • Volpe Martincus Christian

    (Inter-American Development Bank and CESifo, 1300 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, USA)

Abstract

How can policymakers promote women-led exporting firms? In this paper, we study the role of online business platforms to reduce informational barriers to exporting for women entrepreneurs. We hypothesize that, if the costs associated with accessing digital platforms are more symmetric across gender than traditional trade costs, digital trade platforms can play an important role in making trade more gender equal. To assess this hypothesis, we combine information on firms’ participation in ConnectAmericas, a free and purely informational online platform, and detailed firm-level export data of a developing country over a long period. We find that participation in this platform is associated with a significantly larger increase in exports for women-managed firms than for men-managed firms in otherwise identical products and destinations. Given existing evidence on the role of women-managed businesses in reducing gender earnings inequality, these results suggest that policies which encourage women participation in online environments, to reduce the informational barriers associated with operating in foreign markets, have the capacity to promote gender equality more broadly.

Suggested Citation

  • Poole Jennifer P. & Volpe Martincus Christian, 2023. "Can Online Platforms Promote Women-Led Exporting Firms?," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 357-384, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:globdv:v:14:y:2023:i:2:p:357-384:n:2
    DOI: 10.1515/jgd-2023-0010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/jgd-2023-0010
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/jgd-2023-0010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:globdv:v:14:y:2023:i:2:p:357-384:n:2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyterbrill.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.