Gender disparities in small and medium-size enterprise lending exist around the world and impede the growth of millions of women-led firms. This paper examines a potential driver of these disparities: gender-biased loan officers. Officer bias is measured through a novel loan application...

A range of reasons is cited to explain gender differences in business performance in Africa. Within those, the sector of operations is consistently identified as a major issue. This paper uses a mixed methods approach to assess how women entrepreneurs in Uganda start (and strive) operating firms...

Business training programs in low-income settings have shown limited, if any, impacts on firm revenues and profits, particularly for female entrepreneurs. This paper uses a randomized design to compare the impacts of two types of business training programs targeting women with established small...

Developing country governments seek to reduce the pervasive informality of firms for multiple reasons: increasing the tax base, helping firms access formal markets and grow, increasing the rule of law, and as a means to obtain data that can be used for other government functions. However, there...

Women make essential contributions to agriculture in developing countries, where they constitute approximately 43 percent of the agricultural labor force. However, female farmers typically have lower output per unit of land and are much less likely to be active in commercial farming than their...