Blended Finance and Female Entrepreneurship: Ralph De Haas, EBRD, KU Leuven and CEPR

Event Date: 19 February 2025

Speaker: Ralph De Haas, EBRD, KU Leuven and CEPR

Venue: Strathclyde Business School, Cathedral Wing, CW406B

Time: 2pm

Abstract:

Blended finance programmes combine public and private funds to ease access to credit for underserved firm segments. While these programmes have become widespread in many emerging markets, evidence on their impact remains lacking. We merge credit registry data, firm-level tax records, and matched employer-employee data to analyse a typical blended finance programme for female entrepreneurs in Turkey. Our synthetic difference-in-differences results reveal a 22% average increase in the share of credit allocated to women by participating banks, a sustained effect driven by higher lending to existing, poached, and first-time female borrowers. Beneficiary firms, especially those with higher capital productivity, experience increased investment, employment, sales, profits, and supplier diversification, as well as lower exit rates. Our results offer new empirical insights into the mechanisms driving effective financial inclusion policies.

Published: 18 February 2025