Friendship at Work: Can Peer Effects Catalyze Female Entrepreneurship?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Field, Erica; Jayachandran, Seema; Pande, Rohini; Rigol, Natalia
• 署名单位: Duke University; Northwestern University; Harvard University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20140215
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 125-153
• 关键词: randomized evaluation; field experiment; INDIA; networks; models

摘要

Does the lack of peers contribute to the observed gender gap in entrepreneurial success? A random sample of customers of India's largest women's bank was offered two days of business counseling, and a random subsample was invited to attend with a friend. The intervention significantly increased participants' business activity, but only if they were trained with a friend. Those trained with a friend were more likely to have taken out business loans, were less likely to be housewives, and reported increased business activity and higher household income, with stronger impacts among women subject to social norms that restrict female mobility.