Financing and Performance of Female-Owned Firms in Middle Eastern and African Economies

Empirical evidence suggests that lack of access to financing is a major constraint to performance by female-owned firms in most countries. Firm performance, financing structure, and constraints have been well explored for firms in developed economies but this is not the case for firms in developing economies, especially in Africa and the Middle-East. Largely due to lack of data availability, existing literature on African firms has presented some survey-based evidence on firm performance and financing structures while detailed financial evidence is lacking. This paper aims at filling this research gap. We identify female-owned firms and examine the impact of ownership structure on financing and firm performance. We use cross-sectional financial data covering 25,500 companies in the Middle East and Africa for the years 2006 to 2014. Our results reveal a clear, but perhaps surprising, gender-specific pattern.