NOVAFRICA Seminar: Alexia Delfino, Bocconi University – Female Entrepreneurship and Trust in the Market

In our upcoming NOVAFRICA Research Seminar, we are pleased to welcome Professor Alexia Delfino, from Bocconi University, on Wednesday, 20th May, at 11:30 AM (Lisbon time), in Room B002, at the Nova School of Business and Economics, Carcavelos campus. Who will present his paper:

“Female Entrepreneurship and Trust in the Market”

Abstract

Commerce requires trust, but trust is difficult when one group can expropriate another due to differences in power. This can lead the weaker group to self-segregate into industries and activities; female-led businesses, for example, tend to be small and clustered in a small number of industries where collaborators are also female.  We present a model which relates this economic segregation to rule of law, and predicts that female trust depends on the protective preferences of adjudicators in weak rule of law environments. We then show that effective dispute resolution in Lusaka, Zambia, especially as administered by “market chiefs,” enables trusting behavior by female entrepreneurs, both in cross-section correlations and in two artefactual field experiments. Such trust generates increased economic returns.  We find considerable heterogeneity across market chiefs in their preferences for protecting more vulnerable women.

Find out more about this and other NOVAFRICA seminars here.

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