Public guarantee schemes, corruption and gender. A European SME-level analysis

Does a corrupt politico-institutional environment affect the demand of public subsidies for credit access – so-called public guarantee schemes – by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) helmed by female entrepreneurs? The paper tackles this question by using a large sample of European SMEs over 2010–2014 while also carefully addressing possible endogeneity issues. It provides robust evidence that, compared to their male counterparts, female entrepreneurs: (a) tend to demand more public subsidies, and (b) are more sensitive to the quality of the politico-institutional environment. The upshot is that a corrupt environment is not gender neutral: in light of ‘essential gender features,’ corruption negatively influences SMEs helmed by female entrepreneurs more than male ones.