Topic: Intra-Family Relationship and Female Entrepreneurship

Speaker: Mingzhu Tai, Assistant Professor of Finance, Business School, The University of Hong Kong

Time: 10:00am-11:30am, March 27

Location: 4-101

Abstract:

We study how the intra-family relationship affects female entrepreneurship. By utilizing a major change in marriage law in the U.S., we find that female entrepreneurship increases significantly when the divorce regime changes from mutual consent to unilateral, especially when property rights are more favorable to women. This effect is mainly from an increase in the survival of existing female entrepreneurs rather than the entry of previous housewives. We consider a variety of potential mechanisms and conclude that the increase in female entrepreneurship after the law change is most likely driven by an increase in women’s intra-family bargaining power against spouses.

Speaker Biography:

Mingzhu TAI joined HKU after receiving her Ph.D in Business Economics from Harvard University in 2017. Before that she received her Master and Bachelor degrees in Finance from Tsinghua University.

Mingzhu’s research interests mainly include consumer and household finance, financial intermediation and general corporate finance. She is currently working to understand the relationship between banks, real estate markets, financial regulations, and credit activities by consumers and businesses.