Can Business Owners form Accurate Counterfactuals? : Eliciting Treatment and Control Beliefs about Their Outcomes in the Alternative Treatment Status
A survey of participants in a large-scale business plan competition experiment, in which winners received an average of US$50,000 each, is used to elicit beliefs about what the outcomes would have been in the alternative treatment status. Participa...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/05/26363171/can-business-owners-form-accurate-counterfactuals-eliciting-treatment-control-beliefs-outcomes-alternative-treatment-status http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24505 |
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okr-10986-245052021-04-23T14:04:22Z Can Business Owners form Accurate Counterfactuals? : Eliciting Treatment and Control Beliefs about Their Outcomes in the Alternative Treatment Status McKenzie, David EXPENDITURE ADVERTISING EXPENDITURES PHONE EMPLOYMENT GRANT BUSINESS ECONOMICS FIRMS IMPACT EVALUATION BUSINESS PLAN EXISTING BUSINESSES GEOGRAPHIC REGION RESULTS SALES BUSINESS INVESTMENT TIME PERIOD INFORMATION ENTREPRENEURS GEOGRAPHIC REGION EXISTING BUSINESSES EXPENDITURES ENTERPRISE IMPACTS DISTRIBUTION COST BUSINESS GROWTH PRIVATE SECTOR BUSINESS GROWTH OWNERSHIP TIME PERIOD BUSINESS PLAN BRANCH REPORTING TRAINING COURSE COMPUTER OPEN ACCESS RESULT ADVERTISING SECURITY BUSINESSES BUSINESS BUSINESS PLANS IMPACT EVALUATION BUSINESS INVESTMENT BUSINESS OWNERSHIP INNOVATION FIRM SMALL FIRMS BUSINESS TRAINING PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROFITS TRAINING COURSE TARGET ACCOUNT GRANTS BUSINESS ECONOMICS TELEPHONE BUSINESS TRAINING A survey of participants in a large-scale business plan competition experiment, in which winners received an average of US$50,000 each, is used to elicit beliefs about what the outcomes would have been in the alternative treatment status. Participants are asked the percent chance they would be operating a firm, and the number of employees and monthly sales they would have, had their treatment status been reversed. The study finds the control group to have reasonably accurate expectations of the large treatment effect they would experience on the likelihood of operating a firm, although this may reflect the treatment effect being close to an upper bound. The control group dramatically overestimates how much winning would help them grow the size of their firm. The treatment group overestimates how much winning helps their chance of running a business, and also overestimates how much winning helps them grow their firms. In addition, these counterfactual expectations appear unable to generate accurate relative rankings of which groups of participants benefit most from treatment. 2016-06-13T21:17:16Z 2016-06-13T21:17:16Z 2016-05 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/05/26363171/can-business-owners-form-accurate-counterfactuals-eliciting-treatment-control-beliefs-outcomes-alternative-treatment-status http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24505 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7668 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English en_US |
| topic |
EXPENDITURE ADVERTISING EXPENDITURES PHONE EMPLOYMENT GRANT BUSINESS ECONOMICS FIRMS IMPACT EVALUATION BUSINESS PLAN EXISTING BUSINESSES GEOGRAPHIC REGION RESULTS SALES BUSINESS INVESTMENT TIME PERIOD INFORMATION ENTREPRENEURS GEOGRAPHIC REGION EXISTING BUSINESSES EXPENDITURES ENTERPRISE IMPACTS DISTRIBUTION COST BUSINESS GROWTH PRIVATE SECTOR BUSINESS GROWTH OWNERSHIP TIME PERIOD BUSINESS PLAN BRANCH REPORTING TRAINING COURSE COMPUTER OPEN ACCESS RESULT ADVERTISING SECURITY BUSINESSES BUSINESS BUSINESS PLANS IMPACT EVALUATION BUSINESS INVESTMENT BUSINESS OWNERSHIP INNOVATION FIRM SMALL FIRMS BUSINESS TRAINING PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROFITS TRAINING COURSE TARGET ACCOUNT GRANTS BUSINESS ECONOMICS TELEPHONE BUSINESS TRAINING |
| spellingShingle |
EXPENDITURE ADVERTISING EXPENDITURES PHONE EMPLOYMENT GRANT BUSINESS ECONOMICS FIRMS IMPACT EVALUATION BUSINESS PLAN EXISTING BUSINESSES GEOGRAPHIC REGION RESULTS SALES BUSINESS INVESTMENT TIME PERIOD INFORMATION ENTREPRENEURS GEOGRAPHIC REGION EXISTING BUSINESSES EXPENDITURES ENTERPRISE IMPACTS DISTRIBUTION COST BUSINESS GROWTH PRIVATE SECTOR BUSINESS GROWTH OWNERSHIP TIME PERIOD BUSINESS PLAN BRANCH REPORTING TRAINING COURSE COMPUTER OPEN ACCESS RESULT ADVERTISING SECURITY BUSINESSES BUSINESS BUSINESS PLANS IMPACT EVALUATION BUSINESS INVESTMENT BUSINESS OWNERSHIP INNOVATION FIRM SMALL FIRMS BUSINESS TRAINING PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROFITS TRAINING COURSE TARGET ACCOUNT GRANTS BUSINESS ECONOMICS TELEPHONE BUSINESS TRAINING McKenzie, David Can Business Owners form Accurate Counterfactuals? : Eliciting Treatment and Control Beliefs about Their Outcomes in the Alternative Treatment Status |
| relation |
Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7668 |
| description |
A survey of participants in a
large-scale business plan competition experiment, in which
winners received an average of US$50,000 each, is used to
elicit beliefs about what the outcomes would have been in
the alternative treatment status. Participants are asked the
percent chance they would be operating a firm, and the
number of employees and monthly sales they would have, had
their treatment status been reversed. The study finds the
control group to have reasonably accurate expectations of
the large treatment effect they would experience on the
likelihood of operating a firm, although this may reflect
the treatment effect being close to an upper bound. The
control group dramatically overestimates how much winning
would help them grow the size of their firm. The treatment
group overestimates how much winning helps their chance of
running a business, and also overestimates how much winning
helps them grow their firms. In addition, these
counterfactual expectations appear unable to generate
accurate relative rankings of which groups of participants
benefit most from treatment. |
| format |
Working Paper |
| author |
McKenzie, David |
| author_facet |
McKenzie, David |
| author_sort |
McKenzie, David |
| title |
Can Business Owners form Accurate Counterfactuals? : Eliciting Treatment and Control Beliefs about Their Outcomes in the Alternative Treatment Status |
| title_short |
Can Business Owners form Accurate Counterfactuals? : Eliciting Treatment and Control Beliefs about Their Outcomes in the Alternative Treatment Status |
| title_full |
Can Business Owners form Accurate Counterfactuals? : Eliciting Treatment and Control Beliefs about Their Outcomes in the Alternative Treatment Status |
| title_fullStr |
Can Business Owners form Accurate Counterfactuals? : Eliciting Treatment and Control Beliefs about Their Outcomes in the Alternative Treatment Status |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Can Business Owners form Accurate Counterfactuals? : Eliciting Treatment and Control Beliefs about Their Outcomes in the Alternative Treatment Status |
| title_sort |
can business owners form accurate counterfactuals? : eliciting treatment and control beliefs about their outcomes in the alternative treatment status |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2016 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/05/26363171/can-business-owners-form-accurate-counterfactuals-eliciting-treatment-control-beliefs-outcomes-alternative-treatment-status http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24505 |
| _version_ |
1764456896340688896 |