Female firms and bank's lending behavior: What happened during the great recession?

In this paper, by using bank-firm level data contained in the Central credit register at the Bank of Italy, we investigate whether the gender of the firm owner affects the growth rate of outstanding loans in the period 2007-2009, controlling for all the observable characteristics available. Our findings indicate that women-owned firms faced ceteris paribus a more pronounced tightening in credit supply with respect to non-female firms. This evidence holds true for the total loans and for its short term component, while it does not seem to hold for overdraft facilities