Gender Bias in Investment and Entrepreneurship in Ethiopia

This lab-in-the-field experiment will measure the gender bias in entrepreneurship and investment among youth and credit officers in Ethiopia. Chigign Tobiya “Ethiopia Emerges” is a television show in Ethiopia where entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of business tycoons for a chance to get investment funding. Using actors and actresses we record mock business pitches that keep the business idea of the pitch constant but we vary the gender of the entrepreneur, gender sector stereotype, and pitch quality to examine whether there is a gender bias amongst male and female audience members. We also test the impacts of different content tweaks (entrepreneur backstories, role models, educational content) on gender attitudes and biases in entrepreneurship and investment decisions among youth and credit officers. In the experiment we randomize individuals to watch one of eight different combinations of video clips for 1,600 aspiring entrepreneurs (800 male and 800 female TVET students) and 200 credit officers (from a selected microfinance institution).