Business Training and Female Enterprise Start-up, Growth, and Dynamics : Experimental Evidence from Sri Lanka
The authors conduct a randomized experiment among women in urban Sri Lanka to measure the impact of the most commonly used business training course in developing countries, the Start-and-Improve Your Business program. They work with two representat...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/07/16531190/business-training-female-enterprise-start-up-growth-dynamics-experimental-evidence-sri-lanka http://hdl.handle.net/10986/11998 |
| Summary: | The authors conduct a randomized
experiment among women in urban Sri Lanka to measure the
impact of the most commonly used business training course in
developing countries, the Start-and-Improve Your Business
program. They work with two representative groups of women:
a random sample of women operating subsistence enterprises
and a random sample of women who are out of the labor force
but interested in starting a business. They track the
impacts of two treatments -- training only and training plus
a cash grant -- over two years with four follow-up surveys
and find that the short and medium-term impacts differ. For
women already in business, training alone leads to some
changes in business practices but has no impact on business
profits, sales or capital stock. In contrast, the
combination of training and a grant leads to large and
significant improvements in business profitability in the
first eight months, but this impact dissipates in the second
year. For women interested in starting enterprises, business
training speeds up entry but leads to no increase in net
business ownership by the final survey round. Both
profitability and business practices of the new entrants are
increased by training, suggesting training may be more
effective for new owners than for existing businesses. The
study also finds that the two treatments have selection
effects, leading to entrants being less analytically skilled
and poorer. |
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