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Gender Specific Distortions, Entrepreneurship and Misallocation

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  • Ranasinghe, Ashantha

    (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)

Abstract

Women account for a small share of all business owners and a small share of the market in India's manufacturing sector. To account for these patterns, I estimate the extent of gender-specific distortions to operating a business using firm-level data. Feeding these estimates that differ across gender into a standard framework of heterogeneous producers replicates key features of the firm size distribution, on aggregate and across gender. While women face higher entry barriers into entrepreneurship, they have modest impacts on female market shares when there are sharp differences in distortions across gender along the intensive margin of entrepreneurship. Policies that promote female entrepreneurship are effective, yet have only modest impacts on aggregate productivity. These findings are not unique to India, and apply across a broader set of countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Ranasinghe, Ashantha, 2023. "Gender Specific Distortions, Entrepreneurship and Misallocation," Working Papers 2023-1, University of Alberta, Department of Economics, revised 27 Jul 2023.
  • Handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2023_001
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender; entrepreneurship; misallocation; productivity; micro data.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • O50 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - General

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