Zuzana Brixiova (Technical University of Ostrava): "Enterprising women in Southern Africa: When does land ownership matter?"

Limited access to finance remains one of the major barriers for women entrepreneurs in Africa. This paper presents a model of start-ups in which firms’ sales and profits depend on their productivity and access to credit. However, due to the lack of collateral assets such as land, female entrepreneurs have more constrained access to credit than men. Testing the model on data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys in Eswatini, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe confirms the positive links between land ownership and sales levels of women entrepreneurs, suggesting that the small Southern African economies could benefit from removing obstacles to female land tenure. While land ownership as collateral seems key for larger-scale operations, it appears less critical for female entrepreneurs aiming to grow and innovate.