Misum Seminar with Morgan Hardy, NYU Abu Dhabi
About the speaker
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Morgan Hardy is Assistant Professor of Economics at NYU Abu Dhabi. Her research focuses broadly on private enterprise development and employment in low-income countries. She has active field projects in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Nigeria, on topics including combatting youth unemployment, improving small business profits, community-level impacts of industrialization, gender pay inequality, and the dynamics of small business owner networks. |
Abstract
As our global society moves toward an increased focus on equity and inclusion, we naturally find ourselves using existing public data sources to pursue a better understanding of such issues. This project highlights the importance of considering the original sampling frame in the secondary use of data for new research, by examining the case of women-owned enterprise representation. Using data from 43 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, we document large variations in women-owned enterprise representation and estimates of gender gaps in enterprise performance between commonly available data sources. We provide empirical evidence that these differences are driven by variations in gender-blind sampling protocols. Women-owned enterprises are less likely to meet the sampling criteria for most widely available enterprise data and those that do are more positively selected on performance, relative to male-owned enterprises. We also document differences in implied policy and research priorities across data sources, driven both by target sample characteristics and survey structure. Our analysis makes clear that insights derived from these data sources may be gender-biased toward the average male owner's experience. We conclude with discussion on how to develop more inclusive enterprise data collection methods, and present preliminary findings from a new enterprise data collection endeavor in Ghana aiming to have improved gender representation.
About the event
The seminar will take place at the Stockholm School of Economics on Thursday, August 24 from 12:00 to 13:00 in Terrassrummet (Floor 8 at Höllandargatan 32). Lunch will be provided during the seminar for all registered participants. If you plan to attend, please register here.
Header image by Ninno Jack Jr on Unsplash