Women business owners: a source of stability during the great recession?

Abstract

During the period of the Great Recession, previous research has found that women-owned firms were less likely to lay-off workers than were firms owned by men. Given that the individual firm behaviour has a cumulative effect on regional economic performance, we expect greater stability across those regions with a larger share of women-owned and managed businesses. We test this hypothesis using US county data during the period from 2007 to 2013 at the US county level. Consistent with the findings of Matsa and Miller, our results suggest that regional economic stability increases with the share of women-owned and managed establishments.