Discussion paper
DP18763 Blended Finance and Female Entrepreneurship
Blended finance programs combine public and private funds to ease credit constraints of specific firm segments. Despite being scaled up globally, evidence on their impact remains lacking. Using credit registry and tax data, we analyze a typical blended finance program for female entrepreneurs in Turkey. Participating banks durably increased the share of credit allocated to women by 22% on average, lending more to existing, poached, and first-time female borrowers. Beneficiary firms, especially those with higher capital productivity, experienced increased investment, sales, profits, and supplier diversification, while exits decreased. However, the program's modest scale limited its impact on overall firm populations.
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