American Economic Journal:
Economic Policy
ISSN 1945-7731 (Print) | ISSN 1945-774X (Online)
Friendship at Work: Can Peer Effects Catalyze Female Entrepreneurship?
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
vol. 8,
no. 2, May 2016
(pp. 125–53)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
Does the lack of peers contribute to the observed gender gap in entrepreneurial success? A random sample of customers of India’s largest women's bank was offered two days of business counseling, and a random subsample was invited to attend with a friend. The intervention significantly increased participants' business activity, but only if they were trained with a friend. Those trained with a friend were more likely to have taken out business loans, were less likely to be housewives, and reported increased business activity and higher household income, with stronger impacts among women subject to social norms that restrict female mobility. (JEL G21, J16, J24, L26, M53, O16, Z13)Citation
Field, Erica, Seema Jayachandran, Rohini Pande, and Natalia Rigol. 2016. "Friendship at Work: Can Peer Effects Catalyze Female Entrepreneurship?" American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 8 (2): 125–53. DOI: 10.1257/pol.20140215Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- G21 Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
- J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
- L26 Entrepreneurship
- M53 Personnel Economics: Training
- O16 Economic Development: Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
There are no comments for this article.
Login to Comment