Firm Performance Characteristics And Gender Ownership In A Globalised Economy

This paper extends existing research on firm heterogeneity by exploring whether differences in firm performance characteristics may in part be related to the gender of the proprietor of the firm. Using a data set of Irish manufacturing firms covering the period 1993 to 2002, the authors estimate multivariate regression models comparing the performance of female-owned and male-female joint ownership firms with firms owned by males only. When compared with all other firm types, female-owned firms exhibit inferior firm performance characteristics.