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This study analyses the role of individuals' objective financial knowledge in shaping preferences for ethical intermediaries and sustainable investments in Italy. Another goal of this study is to assess the impact of individuals' misperceptions about their own financial knowledge and to test for gender-related differences in attitudes towards socially responsible investing (SRI).

Using nationally representative microdata from the Bank of Italy’s “Italian Literacy and Financial Competence Survey” (IACOFI), the authors use probit models, extended to account for potential endogeneity issues, to assess the causal effects of financial knowledge and confidence on stated preferences for SRI. Empirical models also allow to explicitly assess the moderating role of gender on the effects of financial knowledge and confidence on attitudes towards sustainable investing.

Results indicate that individuals' preferences for sustainable finance significantly increase with financial knowledge, suggesting that inadequate financial competencies represent a barrier to participation in SRI. At the same time, lack of confidence in one’s own financial knowledge significantly hampers attitudes towards sustainable investments. Furthermore, the authors show that women have a greater preference for sustainable finance than men and point out that financial knowledge and confidence exert heterogenous effects on attitudes towards SRI.

This study provides several contributions to the literature on SRI. First, the authors give evidence of the causal effect of financial knowledge on preferences for both ethical financial intermediaries and sustainable investments. Moreover, this is the first study to investigate the role of financial underconfidence bias in shaping individuals' SRI attitudes. Finally, extending previous research, the authors assess differences in SRI preferences between women and men and provide novel evidence on gender-related heterogeneity in the effects of financial knowledge and underconfidence.

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the presence of gender-based discrimination in formal credit markets during the global financial crisis. Specifically, the study tests for gender differences in the probability of being credit-rationed, in the likelihood of being a discouraged borrower and in the price conditions of bank financing.

This paper uses the fifth wave of the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS), which provides detailed micro data on firms from 26 transition economies in Europe and Central Asia. The empirical analysis employs linear and non-linear sample selection regression models and extended Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition techniques to assess gender differences in access to credit.

Controlling for a large set of observable firm characteristics and for endogenous selectivity, we find that female-led firms are more likely to face financing constraints and to be discouraged from applying for credit than their male counterparts. Conditional on having obtained a loan, female-led firms also face significantly higher interest rates. Furthermore, the observed gender gaps are mainly due to unexplained factors, supporting the hypothesis that banks discriminate against women-led firms in their credit-granting decision.

This study provides new insights on gender discrimination in formal credit markets, highlighting that gender differentials in access to credit significantly vary across countries and strongly depend upon the definition of the firm's gender structure. From a policy perspective, the evidence obtained stresses the need for policies aimed at promoting the role of women in the economic environment in order to reduce discrimination and raise competition in credit markets. Moreover, public interventions should support lending to creditworthy female enterprises in order to improve their perceptions about banks' willingness to grant credit and reduce their propensity to be discouraged from applying.

Women's Plight: Bad and Getting Worse, an article in Challenge by Barbara R. Bergman, March/April 1983 in which she argues that the Reagan's administration's budget‐cutting in humans services will worsen the economic lot of millions of Americans. It will hit hardest at women who are not under the economic protection of a relatively affluent employed male. Perhaps it is no accident that this policy is in accord with the “family policy” of the extreme right, with its belief in strengthening the subordination of women to men within the traditional family. But the fact is that there are millions of never‐married women, millions of single mothers, and millions of older women who are without a man. The present US administration's dismantling of federal programmes is going to make their already bad position more hopeless.