Working papers

Do female entrepreneurs in MENA countries face obstacles to funding their businesses, either through self-selection or discrimination? A literature review reveals controversial evidence thereof but, to date, no paper has tackled this funding issue for female entrepreneurs in MENA countries from a dynamic perspective. Three pooled samples, from the 2013 and 2019 World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES), and a cohort over 2013-2020, include three North African countries (Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia) and three Middle East countries (Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine); they document the financial behaviour of both owners and managers, according to gender. Probit regressions address loan demand (including Heckman probit) and loan supply, with respect to self-selection versus discrimination. In 2013, there is neither self-selection nor discrimination for female entrepreneurs, whereas female entrepreneurs are prone to self-selection in 2019, compared to their male counterparts. Self-selection behaviour from the demand side does not result from discrimination on the supply side. Sampling biases in the WBES, together with the characteristics of female clients of microfinance institutions, suggest that micro-entrepreneurs would have experienced self-selection and, possibly discrimination, regarding credit.

The social and solidarity economy, through cooperative structures, has been promoted for its potential to reduce poverty, enhance economic inclusion and provide alternative solutions to labour market issues in developing countries. Nevertheless, very few empirical evaluations of their impact exist. We build an original qualitative and quantitative survey on the population of cooperatives in different sectors in Morocco and estimate the determining factors of their turnover growth, accounting for sample selection bias, as well as their survival rate. Findings point to the existence of three levels of determinants affecting (i) internal factors, (ii) management (president) and (iii) external factors (legal and market environment). We underline the sector’s fragility, the possibility of the existence of negative signaling, the heterogeneity between actors and outcomes and the weak role played by women in leadership positions.

Several emerging economies have embarked on structural adjustment reform programmes to rectify economic imbalances. Most of these programmes have focussed more on short term oriented stabilisation reforms, which reduce the output gap. Yet longer-term structural policies can boost economic growth through shifting the potential GDP. This paper contributes to the literature in three ways. First, we contrast the effects of stabilisation and allocation policies and to what extent they complement or substitute each other. To do so, we run several alternative scenarios related to stabilisation policies (currency devaluation, subsidy removal and VAT tax) and others related to allocation policies (public spending on education and health and improving the competition policy). Second, we analyse how the effects of such policies can differ in the short and long term and with different market structures (perfect vs. imperfect competition). Third, using a recent social accounting matrix (SAM) of 2014/2015, we develop a CGE model for an economy, Egypt, that is under-researched in the CGE literature and that was subject to a recent reform programme developed with the IMF. Our main findings show that stabilisation reforms reduce economic growth by 2.5% in the short run. Yet they positively affect it over time, especially if they are accompanied by structural reforms. Indeed, the latter increase economic growth (of 8.6% in the long run). Furthermore, from a social perspective, stabilisation reform deteriorates household welfare in the short run, especially in urban areas. Finally, we find that negative effects of stabilisation and structural reforms are more pronounced under imperfect competition, pointing to the importance of an effective competition policy.