Blended Finance and Female Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Blended finance programs combine public and private funding to ease credit constraints of specific firm segments. While rapidly gaining popularity, little evidence exists on their economic impact. To address this gap, we match credit registry data with firm-level tax records to trace out the impacts of a blended finance program for female entrepreneurs in Türkiye. Using a synthetic difference-in-differences estimator, we show that participating banks durably increase lending to women – both in absolute terms and relative to male entrepreneurs. The average treatment effect on treated banks' share of lending to female entrepreneurs is 23 percent. Banks expand credit to existing borrowers, poach clients from competitors, and crowd in first-time borrowers. Female clients of treated banks increase net borrowing and investment, especially those with higher capital productivity. Beneficiary firms grow their sales and profits, diversify suppliers, and exit less. There are no discernible impacts on aggregate firm populations at the district level, reflecting the program's relatively modest scale. Implications for program design are discussed.

Keywords: Blended finance, credit access, female entrepreneurship, misallocation

JEL Classification: D22; G21; G32; H81; J16; L26