Making It Easier for Women in Malawi to Formalize Their Firms and Access Financial Services

The rate of informal firms is high in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially for those that are women-owned and in the poorest countries, despite a total of 107 business regulatory reforms recorded by Doing Business across 40 economies in the region. Throu...

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Main Authors:	Campos, Francisco, Goldstein, Markus, McKenzie, David
Format:	Brief
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2019
Subjects:	ACCESS TO FINANCE FINANCIAL SERVICES FINANCIAL INCLUSION BANKING GENDER GENDER INNOVATION LAB AFRICA GENDER POLICY GENDER EQUALITY WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS GENDER GAP SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT GENDER INEQUALITY WOMEN AND PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/515901548692715700/Making-it-Easier-for-Women-in-Malawi-to-Formalize-Their-Firms-and-Access-Financial-Services http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31191

id	okr-10986-31191
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-311912021-05-25T10:54:36Z Making It Easier for Women in Malawi to Formalize Their Firms and Access Financial Services Campos, Francisco Goldstein, Markus McKenzie, David ACCESS TO FINANCE FINANCIAL SERVICES FINANCIAL INCLUSION BANKING GENDER GENDER INNOVATION LAB AFRICA GENDER POLICY GENDER EQUALITY WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS GENDER GAP SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT GENDER INEQUALITY WOMEN AND PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT The rate of informal firms is high in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially for those that are women-owned and in the poorest countries, despite a total of 107 business regulatory reforms recorded by Doing Business across 40 economies in the region. Through an experiment in Malawi, we established an effective and replicable design to offer informal firms support to formalize, costing much less than the typical private sector development intervention. The study shows that one of the primary barriers to registration for women-owned firms is transaction costs. When registration is madevirtually costless, an overwhelming number of women-owned firms (73 percent) choose to register. However, when offered the chance to engage in costless registration for taxes, almost no firms select to pursue this opt ion. Combining business registration with an information session at a bank including the offer of a business bank account leads to an increased use of formal financial services, and results in increases in women owned firms sales and profits of 28 percent and 20 percent respectively. On the other hand, business registration on its own is not as effective in improving access to financial services and does not result in enhanced sales and profits. 2019-02-01T17:30:18Z 2019-02-01T17:30:18Z 2019-01-28 Brief http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/515901548692715700/Making-it-Easier-for-Women-in-Malawi-to-Formalize-Their-Firms-and-Access-Financial-Services http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31191 English Gender Innovation Lab Policy Brief,no. 30; CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Brief Africa Malawi
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	ACCESS TO FINANCE FINANCIAL SERVICES FINANCIAL INCLUSION BANKING GENDER GENDER INNOVATION LAB AFRICA GENDER POLICY GENDER EQUALITY WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS GENDER GAP SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT GENDER INEQUALITY WOMEN AND PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT
spellingShingle	ACCESS TO FINANCE FINANCIAL SERVICES FINANCIAL INCLUSION BANKING GENDER GENDER INNOVATION LAB AFRICA GENDER POLICY GENDER EQUALITY WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS GENDER GAP SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT GENDER INEQUALITY WOMEN AND PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT Campos, Francisco Goldstein, Markus McKenzie, David Making It Easier for Women in Malawi to Formalize Their Firms and Access Financial Services
geographic_facet	Africa Malawi
relation	Gender Innovation Lab Policy Brief,no. 30;
description	The rate of informal firms is high in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially for those that are women-owned and in the poorest countries, despite a total of 107 business regulatory reforms recorded by Doing Business across 40 economies in the region. Through an experiment in Malawi, we established an effective and replicable design to offer informal firms support to formalize, costing much less than the typical private sector development intervention. The study shows that one of the primary barriers to registration for women-owned firms is transaction costs. When registration is madevirtually costless, an overwhelming number of women-owned firms (73 percent) choose to register. However, when offered the chance to engage in costless registration for taxes, almost no firms select to pursue this opt ion. Combining business registration with an information session at a bank including the offer of a business bank account leads to an increased use of formal financial services, and results in increases in women owned firms sales and profits of 28 percent and 20 percent respectively. On the other hand, business registration on its own is not as effective in improving access to financial services and does not result in enhanced sales and profits.
format	Brief
author	Campos, Francisco Goldstein, Markus McKenzie, David
author_facet	Campos, Francisco Goldstein, Markus McKenzie, David
author_sort	Campos, Francisco
title	Making It Easier for Women in Malawi to Formalize Their Firms and Access Financial Services
title_short	Making It Easier for Women in Malawi to Formalize Their Firms and Access Financial Services
title_full	Making It Easier for Women in Malawi to Formalize Their Firms and Access Financial Services
title_fullStr	Making It Easier for Women in Malawi to Formalize Their Firms and Access Financial Services
title_full_unstemmed	Making It Easier for Women in Malawi to Formalize Their Firms and Access Financial Services
title_sort	making it easier for women in malawi to formalize their firms and access financial services
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2019
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/515901548692715700/Making-it-Easier-for-Women-in-Malawi-to-Formalize-Their-Firms-and-Access-Financial-Services http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31191
_version_	1764473783277584384

Making It Easier for Women in Malawi to Formalize Their Firms and Access Financial Services

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