Gender discrimination, social networks and access to informal finance of Vietnamese small and medium enterprises

Thang Ngoc Bach, Thanh Le, Thang Xuan Nguyen and Khanh Hoang

Economic Analysis and Policy, 2023, vol. 78, issue C, 358-372

Abstract: The issue of gender discrimination in the informal credit market is under-investigated given that existing studies largely consider formal bank loans. Using a rich dataset on access to informal loans and loan terms of Vietnamese privately-owned manufacturing small and medium enterprises over 2005-2015, this paper finds that female-run firms have a lower propensity to borrow and incur a higher cost of borrowing from informal sources than male-run counterparts. The empirical evidence on gender discrimination is robust to the control of different firm characteristics, firm-specific unobserved heterogeneity, and selection bias. With the potential to mitigate gender discrimination, extended social networks are found to work in favor of female-run firms.

Keywords: Gender discrimination; Social networks; Financial accessibility; Cost of funding; SMEs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 G21 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:78:y:2023:i:c:p:358-372

DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2023.03.017

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