Transcending Cheap Talk in Female Entrepreneurship: Cross-Country Evidence

Abstract

Encouraging entrepreneurship is an effective way to empower women. While most nations have policies empowering women, are these policies effective in encouraging female entrepreneurship? Additionally, is there a gap between policy enactment and enforcement that hinders entrepreneurship? In this short article, we start a conversation by examining cross-country differences in female entrepreneurship and relating them to existing social, educational, and workplace policies. Further, we suggest a novel measure of enforcement that effectively captures the divergence between stated policies and successful reduction of discriminatory practices on the ground, providing us a tool to isolate cheap talk from effective policy intervention.