Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries

Countries design programs for supporting firms, with varying levels of success. Firm growth is constrained by several factors, such as low firm capabilities (e.g. management), availability of finance, and access to markets. Based on the available e...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Grover, Arti, Imbruno, Michele
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:	FIRM PERFORMANCE BUSINESS SUPPORT RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIALS ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACCESS TO FINANCE MARKET ACCESS FIRM CAPABILITY KNOWLEDGE GAP BUSINESS INCUBATOR
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/949101603887223673/Using-Experimental-Evidence-to-Inform-Firm-Support-Programs-in-Developing-Countries http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34694

id	okr-10986-34694
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-346942022-09-20T00:10:49Z Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries Grover, Arti Imbruno, Michele FIRM PERFORMANCE BUSINESS SUPPORT RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIALS ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACCESS TO FINANCE MARKET ACCESS FIRM CAPABILITY KNOWLEDGE GAP BUSINESS INCUBATOR Countries design programs for supporting firms, with varying levels of success. Firm growth is constrained by several factors, such as low firm capabilities (e.g. management), availability of finance, and access to markets. Based on the available experimental evidence on firm support programs in developing countries, this paper makes three broad observations. First, there are huge knowledge gaps in understanding the success of instruments that alleviate firm constraints. Various instruments, such as early-stage equity finance, incubators, and accelerators, remain untested due to the lack of good design, results framework, or monitoring and evaluation systems and so on. Second, since these interventions are expensive, policy makers expect such programs to be designed more effectively to pursue their objectives. However, evidence provides little guidance on the criterion for firm selection because the existing evaluations of instruments reveal little information on the heterogeneous impact by firm characteristics, such as the age, size, sector, and location of firms. Third, most interventions seek to address only one of the broad constraints faced by firms. To this end, the paper concludes with a novel proposal for a firm support program that attempts to sequentially address multiple constraints to firm growth. This program will be implemented in Malawi through the "Financial Inclusion and Entrepreneurship Scaling" project. 2020-10-29T14:20:19Z 2020-10-29T14:20:19Z 2020-10 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/949101603887223673/Using-Experimental-Evidence-to-Inform-Firm-Support-Programs-in-Developing-Countries http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34694 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9461 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 Africa Malawi
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	FIRM PERFORMANCE BUSINESS SUPPORT RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIALS ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACCESS TO FINANCE MARKET ACCESS FIRM CAPABILITY KNOWLEDGE GAP BUSINESS INCUBATOR
spellingShingle	FIRM PERFORMANCE BUSINESS SUPPORT RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIALS ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACCESS TO FINANCE MARKET ACCESS FIRM CAPABILITY KNOWLEDGE GAP BUSINESS INCUBATOR Grover, Arti Imbruno, Michele Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries
geographic_facet	Africa Malawi
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9461
description	Countries design programs for supporting firms, with varying levels of success. Firm growth is constrained by several factors, such as low firm capabilities (e.g. management), availability of finance, and access to markets. Based on the available experimental evidence on firm support programs in developing countries, this paper makes three broad observations. First, there are huge knowledge gaps in understanding the success of instruments that alleviate firm constraints. Various instruments, such as early-stage equity finance, incubators, and accelerators, remain untested due to the lack of good design, results framework, or monitoring and evaluation systems and so on. Second, since these interventions are expensive, policy makers expect such programs to be designed more effectively to pursue their objectives. However, evidence provides little guidance on the criterion for firm selection because the existing evaluations of instruments reveal little information on the heterogeneous impact by firm characteristics, such as the age, size, sector, and location of firms. Third, most interventions seek to address only one of the broad constraints faced by firms. To this end, the paper concludes with a novel proposal for a firm support program that attempts to sequentially address multiple constraints to firm growth. This program will be implemented in Malawi through the "Financial Inclusion and Entrepreneurship Scaling" project.
format	Working Paper
author	Grover, Arti Imbruno, Michele
author_facet	Grover, Arti Imbruno, Michele
author_sort	Grover, Arti
title	Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries
title_short	Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries
title_full	Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries
title_fullStr	Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries
title_full_unstemmed	Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries
title_sort	using experimental evidence to inform firm support programs in developing countries
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2020
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/949101603887223673/Using-Experimental-Evidence-to-Inform-Firm-Support-Programs-in-Developing-Countries http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34694
_version_	1764481452150358016

Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries

Similar Items