The study assess mobile money demand for utility bill payments and identify factors that affect its adoption in Ethiopia. We use data from urban household survey and dichotomous choice experiment ...that randomly offer a range of prices for using mobile money to pay utility bills. We find that households are willing to pay a higher price to use mobile money than the actual price charged by current mobile money service providers for the payment of goods and services. However, demand is sensitive to price changes. Our findings suggest strong latent demand for mobile money in processing payments.
We analyze the risk attitude of women and men entrepreneurs in the micro and small enterprises (MSEs) and investigate the factors that influence the risk attitude of MSE owners. The empirical ...analysis of the study consists of two parts. First, we use a moment-based approach to estimate the risk preferences of male and female entrepreneurs. Second, we estimate a regression model to understand the correlates of risk attitude and decompose the gender difference in risk aversion using the Oaxaca-Blinder technique. The results indicate that MSE entrepreneurs are risk-averse, with a relative risk premium of 1.5%. We also find that females are slightly more risk-averse than male entrepreneurs. Our regression estimates show that entrepreneurs’ risk attitude is significantly correlated with the age and experience of the entrepreneur, marital status, education level and financial literacy, wealth, sector, and business form. Furthermore, the predictor variables significantly explain the gender difference in risk aversion, while the unexplained component is insignificant. This suggests that the gender difference in risk aversion is due to disparities in socioeconomic factors than a biological difference in risk preference.
This study evaluates the impact of business-development-support programs (credit, training, and a combination of both) on the performance of micro- and small enterprises (MSEs) in Ethiopia. Using ...2015 Ethiopian urban survey data and employing endogenous-switching regressions for multiple treatments, we document a positive and significant effect of credit, training, and a combination of training and credit on MSEs. Our results highlight the heterogeneity in treatment effects between women- and men-owned MSEs: women-owned businesses do not benefit from access to treatments. Our results suggest that improving the performance of MSEs requires fine-tuned interventions that meet the specific needs of men and women who own small businesses rather than one-size-fits-all programs.
The attitudes toward risk of women and men entrepreneurs in micro- and small enterprises (MSEs) are analyzed, and the factors that influence attitude toward risk of MSE owners are investigated. The ...empirical analysis first uses the moment-based approach proposed by Antle (1987) to estimate the risk preferences of men and women entrepreneurs. Second, a regression model is employed to understand the correlates of attitude toward risk and to decompose gender differences in risk aversion using the Oaxaca-Blinder technique. The results clearly indicate that MSE entrepreneurs are risk-averse with a relative risk premium of 1.5%. Women entrepreneurs are slightly more risk-averse than are men entrepreneurs. Regression estimates show that entrepreneurs' attitude toward risk is significantly correlated with age and experience, marital status, education level, financial literacy, wealth, sector, and business type. The gender difference in risk aversion is significantly explained by the predictor variables while the unexplained component is insignificant. This suggests that gender differences in risk preference are the result of disparities in socioeconomic factors rather than of biology.
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