世界银行-减轻家庭征用对女性创业的影响_来自加纳的实验证据（英）-2025.5_48页_924kb

Mitigating the Impact of Household Expropriation on Female Entrepreneurship Experimental Evidence from Ghana

Objective and Methodology
This study investigates how intrahousehold dynamics—specifically, efficiency considerations and expropriation pressures—affect female entrepreneurship in Ghana. A randomized controlled trial was conducted to test four support mechanisms:

• T1: Unconditional cash grant to female entrepreneurs.
• T2: Unconditional cash grant to spouses.
• T3: Grant conditional on joint decision-making training with spouses.
• T4: Grant conditional on meeting a savings goal via a dedicated bank account.
  Outcomes included business performance (investment, sales, profits), savings behavior, and intra-household dynamics over a 1.5-year period.

Key Findings

1. Impact on Business Performance: Contrary to earlier studies, the unconditional cash grants (T1 and T2) had no significant positive impact on female entrepreneurs' business performance, despite being equivalent to two months of median profits.

   • Heterogeneity: Effects were largest for women facing high expropriation pressure at baseline, but overall no significant improvements were observed.

2. Effectiveness of Conditional Treatments:

   • The training (T3) and savings (T4) treatments positively influenced household cooperation and savings behavior, respectively.
   • The savings grant (T4) demonstrated the most substantial impact, leading to a 15% increase in sales and 10% in profits for women with high expropriation pressure. These gains stem from reduced vulnerability to household resource-sharing pressures and improved liquidity constraints.

3. Mechanism of Expropriation Pressure:

   • Unconditional cash grants exacerbated expropriation pressure, as spouses often redistributed the funds.
   • The savings intervention mitigated this by incentivizing self-commitment mechanisms, such as regular deposits in a dedicated bank account.

Policy Implications

• Efficiency considerations alone do not explain the lack of impact from cash grants; expropriation pressures within households are a critical constraint for female entrepreneurship in Ghana.
• Well-designed interventions—specifically, savings-based conditional support—can enhance women's autonomy and business outcomes.
• Policies must address intrahousehold dynamics to effectively support female economic empowerment.