Use of the Internet and its Impact on Productivity and Sales Growth in Female-Owned Firms: Evidence from India

Abstract

The Internet has completely transformed our lives on an individual basis in many ways, ranging from the way we communicate through the way we socialize to the way we shop and travel. Businesses are no exception to this premise. This paper studies the adoption of the Internet by female-owned firms in India. It uses the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys Program data set for the year 2014 to study the adoption of the Internet by more than 10,000 firms in the country. After controlling for a large number of firm-level characteristics, empirical results obtained indicate that female-owned firms are more likely to use the Internet than their male counterparts. However, further empirical analysis shows that more intensive adoption of the Internet by these female-owned firms does not necessarily translate into better performance. Specifically, the adoption of the Internet does not make female-owned firms more or less likely to have better productivity and sales growth in contrast to that of their male counterparts.