Publications

9. People Prefer to Negotiate with Women, Even When Outcomes Are Identical and Gender is Unknown

Provisionally accepted for publication at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 

Charlotte H. Townsend, Laura J. Kray, Solène Delecourt

8. Women’s Approachability Premium in Sales: A Field Experiment among Microentrepreneurs

Provisionally accepted for publication at Organization Science 

Solène Delecourt, Laura Doering and Odyssia Ng

7. The Uneven Impact of Generative AI on Entrepreneurial Performance

Accepted for publication at Management Science 

Nicholas G. Otis, Rowan Clarke, Solène Delecourt, David Holtz, Rembrand Koning

Also see: How AI Helps the Best and Hurts the Rest, Sloan Management Review (2026)

5. Delecourt, Solène. "The effect of relieving time constraints on the business performance of women-owned businesses: A field experiment". Research Policy,  54, no. 7, (2025): 105231.

4. Guilbeault, Douglas, Solène Delecourt, Tasker Hull, Bhargav Srinivasa Desikan, Mark Chu, and Ethan Nadler. "Online images amplify gender bias." Nature 626, no. 8001 (2024): 1049-1055.

3. Grace Hart, Chloe, Charlotte H. Townsend, and Solène Delecourt. "Who Believes Gender Research? How Readers’ Gender Shapes the Evaluation of Gender Research." Social Psychology Quarterly (2024): 01902725241234855.

2. Delecourt, Solène, and Anne Fitzpatrick. "Childcare matters: Female business owners and the baby-profit gap." Management Science 67, no. 7 (2021): 4455-4474.

1. Chatterji, Aaron, Solène Delecourt, Sharique Hasan, and Rembrand Koning. "When does advice impact startup performance?." Strategic Management Journal 40, no. 3 (2019): 331-356.

Link to my Google Scholar

Link to reproducibility files for published papers

Videos summarizing my work: 

Papers in progress

Which Ideas Attract Workers? Gender and Labor Supply in Startups

Revise & Resubmit at Management Science

 Nominated for Best Conference Paper Award at the Strategic Management Society Annual Conference 2023

Nominated for Research Methods Paper Prize at the Strategic Management Society Annual Conference 2023

Startups employ few women, especially at their earliest stages. An underappreciated implication of this demographic inequality is that startup ideas targeting women may struggle to attract the talent needed for venture success. If talent prefers to work on ideas that resonate with their backgrounds, or if workers feel uncomfortable working on ideas focused on other demographic groups, then a lack of workforce diversity may have an unequal impact on which ideas succeed. We test this thesis using a field experiment and observational data on the universe of high-tech startup workers in the U.S. In our experiment, we randomize the gender-focus of startups ideas, for example changing an e-bike startup to specifically focus on female commuters. Results from our (in-progress) field experiment show that shifting a non-female-focused startup idea to be female-focused reduces the probability a candidate applies to the job by 15 percentage points. This effect size is equivalent to reducing a job’s posted annual salary by $30,000. Concealing the gender focus of an already female-focused startup idea has equivalent but opposite effect. These effects are rooted in the choices of male job seekers; the minority of women who look for startup jobs on our job-search platform are more likely to apply to female-focused ideas. We then turn to our observational analysis covering the near-universe of U.S. startups in PitchBook. We use word-embedding models to measure how much an idea focuses on women. We find that female-focused ideas attract 25% fewer employees, that those employees have on average 30% less work experience, and that these gaps are driven by the fact that 80% of startup employees are men. Finally, building on models of bias in entrepreneurial experimentation, we find that these gaps only hold for early-stage firms, female-focused ventures that raise substantial capital exhibit no talent gap. Our findings illustrate how heterogeneity in beliefs about which early-stage ideas are "worthy of working on" can impact the rate and direction of innovation.

Solène Delecourt, Rem Koning, and Sahiba Chopra

Equalizing business characteristics can close the gender gap in micro-business performance 

Revise & Resubmit at the Strategic Management Journal

Women-owned businesses earn less than men-owned businesses worldwide, particularly among small firms in developing countries. One potential explanation for this gap is that female business owners may generate lower returns for a given business compared to their male counterparts. If there is indeed a gender gap in business returns, then the gender performance gap could be attributed to two potential factors: differences in the owner's human capital, or female-led businesses facing constraints in market demand. To test whether women have lower returns than men, we conducted a pre-registered field experiment where we equalized business characteristics for men and women, including inventory, hours, setup, and location. Specifically, we created our own businesses in real markets. We set up pairs of market stalls in three different markets and supplied them with identical goods. We then recruited experienced sellers from other local markets and randomized them to our stalls. Prior to our experiment, we found that men earned at least 50% more than women. But men and women also differed in various characteristics, such as women having lower levels of education and operating smaller businesses. Our experimental results demonstrate that equalizing business characteristics reduces the gender gap in business performance to zero. This indicates that the gender gap in business performance is not solely rooted in differences in returns. Instead, our findings suggest that men and women have the potential to achieve equal returns on business resources. 

Solène Delecourt and Odyssia Ng (World Bank)  

Firm location, childcare, and the gender profit gap

Revise & Resubmit at the Strategic Management Journal

Gender inequality is ubiquitous, including among small business owners in developing countries, which constitute the majority of businesses worldwide. To understand inequality in business performance, research has primarily focused on improving the performance of existing firms by providing capital, advice, or training. These strategies often increase the performance of male-, but not female-owned, firms. In this paper, we explore whether gender differences in a business' initial conditions can help explain this puzzle. If men and women start different kinds of businesses, and those initial choices affect profitability but are hard to change ex-post (are ``sticky"), this may limit potential profitability. To answer this question, we use rich quantitative data from a representative sample of 3,077 businesses in Kenya. In this context, women make 47% fewer profits than men. We find that women tend to locate their businesses in less profitable locations. While firm profits grow with the distance from home, women are more likely to locate their businesses close to home. Using census data of all firms in the study area, we find that male entrepreneurs locate in places with less competition. Male business owners are over five times more likely to be a monopolist in their sector within a specific radius than women. Though sector and location are important for profits, the majority of owners do not update these initial decisions after founding their business: in the two years preceding our study, only 7% of entrepreneurs changed either sector or location. Our findings suggest that these sticky conditions are more binding for women with greater childcare responsibilities than for men or other women. Our results point to the importance of initial conditions in perpetuating the gender gap among small firms in developing countries.

Solène Delecourt, Anne Fitzpatrick, Layna Lowe, Anya Marchenko 

Global Evidence on Gender Gaps and Generative AI Over Time

Under Review

Generative AI has the potential to transform productivity and reduce inequality, but only if adopted broadly. In this paper, we synthesize evidence from 76 sources from over 100 countries and analyze web traffic data to show that gender gaps in generative AI use are nearly universal and persistent. Focusing on the 318,924 respondents from sources that report usage rates for both men and women, we estimate an AI adoption rate of 47.8% for men versus 39.3% for women, a relative gap of 22%. While this relative gap has shrunk over time, it has stabilized at roughly 16% since early 2025. These patterns hold in global web traffic data on the ten most visited AI tools. This data also reveals that women generally spend less time using AI and that the gaps are largest for frontier tools. Our findings are consistent with a view that as AI diffuses, the gap shrinks as women are exposed to and gain familiarity with AI, but that institutional, organizational, and social frictions will likely lead to persistent gaps in who uses AI.

Katelyn Cranney, Solène Delecourt and Rembrand Koning

Closing the Doors: Sexual Harassment and the Survival Rates of Women-owned Firms

Under review

This paper examines sexual harassment and economic outcomes in entrepreneurship. Using a unique panel dataset of 790 women-owned firms in Ethiopia tracked over five years, we relate sexual harassment experienced by business owners to firm performance. First, we document the prevalence of sexual harassment among women business owners. We find over 16% of the women in our sample reported having been harassed in the prior 12 months, including incidences of sexual proposals and inappropriate physical contact. We show that sexual harassment varies by business sector, as well as individual and firm characteristics. Findings suggest that experiencing sexual harassment is negatively associated with the economic returns of women business owners over time. Women entrepreneurs who report having experienced sexual harassment are 37% more likely to close their businesses five years later, despite initially earning higher business profits. Firm closure is associated with lower subsequent earnings, suggesting exit is not driven by better employment opportunities. Our findings suggest that gender-based safety constraints may distort firm dynamics and women’s economic achievement.

Solène Delecourt, Sreelakshmi Papineni. Niklas Buehren, Salman Alibhai

Work in progress

The effect of AI Interviewers on gender gaps in hiring: Large-scale experimental evidence

Solène Delecourt, Brian Jabarian, and Luca Henkel