Trade, Investment and Women’s Entrepreneurship
AUTHOR(S): Tingting Xiong and Nyanya Browne
This study examines the effects of trade and investment liberalization on women’s entrepreneurship activities, particularly in developing countries. The research in the literature has demonstrated that trade and investment liberalization bring capital and knowledge transfers (Guadalupe et al., 2012; McGrattan and Prescott, 2009), which would increase the rate of new business formation in emerging markets. However, to our knowledge, no research has differentiated the impact of trade and investment liberalization on men’s and women’s entrepreneurship. Hence, this paper fills the gap in the literature by emphasizing women’s entrepreneurship activities and by utilizing two-way fixed effects and dynamic panel data approaches with newly available datasets. Our analysis indicates that trade and investment liberalization promotes women’s entrepreneurship, particularly in developing countries’ manufacturing industries.
KEYWORDS: entrepreneurship; trade and investment liberalization; gender inequality