Abstract
How can policymakers promote women-led exporting firms? In this paper, we study the role of online business platforms to reduce informational barriers to exporting for women entrepreneurs. We hypothesize that, if the costs associated with accessing digital platforms are more symmetric across gender than traditional trade costs, digital trade platforms can play an important role in making trade more gender equal. To assess this hypothesis, we combine information on firms’ participation in ConnectAmericas, a free and purely informational online platform, and detailed firm-level export data of a developing country over a long period. We find that participation in this platform is associated with a significantly larger increase in exports for women-managed firms than for men-managed firms in otherwise identical products and destinations. Given existing evidence on the role of women-managed businesses in reducing gender earnings inequality, these results suggest that policies which encourage women participation in online environments, to reduce the informational barriers associated with operating in foreign markets, have the capacity to promote gender equality more broadly.
Appendix
ConnectAmericas is a purely informational business platform. It provides access to relevant information, but neither allows for direct transactions among firms nor incorporates the respective logistic solutions. Please see Carballo et al. (2022) for more detailed information on the platform.
It offers two main functions: Learn and Connect. The Learn function offers participating firms capacity-building services that furnish them with general trade information. These services include free online courses and webinars and training materials such as video testimonials and articles on trade-related matters; access to trade datasets and business self-evaluation tools; lists and contact data of public and private organizations that manage support programs for firms in countries where they operate; and the possibility to share relevant information and ask questions to the community or reply to posts by other firms.
The Connect function, instead, provides firms with specific commercial information. It primarily allows firms to search for a potential partner’s profile and interact with members of their staff, either through a messaging system provided by the platform or through the availability of direct e-mail addresses. In addition, firms can participate in business communities, which are forums where they can write posts to make announcements about goods or services that they want to buy or sell; and be notified about business opportunities, which consist of purchasing announcements by large firms, and apply to these opportunities; and obtain information about face-to-face business events, some of which are organized by the platform.
Therefore, the platform offers generic information about trade and trade procedures and, importantly, directly connects buyers and suppliers. Carballo et al. (2022) offer further evidence for the platform as reducing information and search frictions in international trade relying on data for the specific number of site visits by potential buyers searching for suppliers.
Table A1: Total Number of Firms in ConnectAmericas
| Women-led | Men-led | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Large | Small | Large | Small |
| 7 | 65 | 17 | 70 |
-
Source: ConnectAmericas, 2014–2018.
| Men-led | Women-led | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean | Median | Mean | Median | |
| Export value | 19,184.92 | 96.97 | 2,364.54 | 47.36 |
| Number of exported products | 5.14 | 2.00 | 4.48 | 2.00 |
| Number of destination countries | 4.20 | 1.67 | 3.21 | 1.44 |
| Number of employees | 469.06 | 5.00 | 73.19 | 3.00 |
| Age | 12.53 | 7.90 | 9.20 | 6.83 |
| Export promotion status | 0.47 | 0.50 | 0.55 | 0.67 |
-
Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from SUNAT, PROMPERU, and ConnectAmericas, 2014–2018. Note: Export values are expressed in thousands of US dollars.
Table A2: The Impact of ConnectAmericas on Firm Exports, by Management Gender and Sector Representation of Women
| Export value | |||
|
|
|||
| ConnectAmericas × | |||
| Women-led firms × above median representation | 0.219a | 0.271a | 0.390a |
| (0.062) | (0.083) | (0.131) | |
| Women-led firms × below median representation | −0.144 | −0.005 | 0.143a |
| (0.312) | (0.257) | (0.000) | |
| ConnectAmericas × | |||
| Men-led firms × above median representation | 0.030 | 0.041 | 0.094 |
| (0.075) | (0.074) | (0.079) | |
| Men-led firms × below median representation | 0.286b | 0.155c | 0.111 |
| (0.145) | (0.087) | (0.076) | |
|
|
|||
| Export weight | |||
|
|
|||
| ConnectAmericas × | |||
| Women-led firms × above median representation | 0.150b | 0.215b | 0.321a |
| (0.075) | (0.084) | (0.120) | |
| Women-led firms × below median representation | 0.060 | 0.010 | 0.000 |
| (0.376) | (0.209) | (0.000) | |
| ConnectAmericas × | |||
| Men-led firms × above median representation | 0.039 | 0.082 | 0.110 |
| (0.069) | (0.074) | (0.083) | |
| Men-led firms × below median representation | 0.332b | 0.188 | 0.181 |
| (0.169) | (0.122) | (0.132) | |
|
|
|||
| Unit value | |||
|
|
|||
| ConnectAmericas × | |||
| Women-led firms × above median representation | 0.068a | 0.056b | 0.069a |
| (0.023) | (0.026) | (0.024) | |
| Women-led firms × below median representation | −0.204 | −0.015 | 0.143a |
| (0.171) | (0.162) | (0.000) | |
| ConnectAmericas × | |||
| Men-led firms × above median representation | −0.008 | −0.041 | −0.017 |
| (0.030) | (0.026) | (0.032) | |
| Men-led firms × below median representation | −0.047 | −0.033 | −0.069 |
| (0.059) | (0.085) | (0.104) | |
| Firm-product-destination fixed effects | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Time-varying firm-level control variables | Yes | Yes | No |
| Firm-time trend | No | Yes | No |
| Firm-year fixed effects | No | No | Yes |
| Region-sector-year fixed effects | Yes | Yes | No |
| Product-destination-semester-year fixed effects | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Observations | 627,530 | 627,530 | 627,530 |
-
Sources: ConnectAmericas and SUNAT, 2014–2018. Notes: Robust standard errors are reported in parentheses. aDenotes significance at the 1 percent level; bdenotes significance at the 5 percent level; cdenotes significance at the 10 percent level.
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