Mascia, DV and Rossi, SPS (2017) Is there a gender effect on the cost of bank financing? Journal of Financial Stability, 31. pp. 136-153. ISSN 1572-3089
Abstract
In this paper, we address the question of whether the gender of a firm’s leader affects the cost of bank funding faced by small and medium enterprises in Europe. Using a large sample of observations of non-financial firms, during the years 2009–2013, we empirically test for the presence of discrimination, comparing female-led and male-led firms. After controlling for a rich set of variables and addressing potential endogeneity, our results show that i) female-led enterprises are more likely to face worse price conditions for bank financing compared to their male-led counterparts and, ii) firms whose leadership changes from female to male are more likely to benefit from an improvement in interest rate levels. This evidence is robust to different model specifications and various methodological approaches. The existence of such bias in the credit markets highlights the need of policy measures addressing female-led businesses, thus reducing their bank financing burdens and enhancing their entrepreneurial opportunities.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Journal of Financial Stability. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Cost of funding; Gender discrimination; Bank lending; SMEs |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Accounting & Finance Division (LUBS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 05 Apr 2019 13:35 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 21:46 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jfs.2017.07.002 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:144485 |