IGL database (beta)
Year | Title | Short summary | Country | Author | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | Impact Evaluation of an Intervention on Small and Medium Enterprises in Chile |
This impact evaluation aims to measure the effect of a program that combines business training, mentoring, and a large cash transfer on high-potential small and medium businesses in Chile. 250 out of the top 500 firms participating in a business plan competition will be randomly selected to receive all three components of the program, while the remaining firms will receive none of them. In-person surveys with the entrepreneurs will be conducted before and 12 months after the program. |
Huneeus, F., Martínez Alvear, C., Woodruff, C. | | |
2022 | Using Individual-Level Randomized Treatment to Learn about Market Structure |
Interference across competing firms in RCTs can be informative about market structure. An experiment that subsidizes a random subset of traders who buy cocoa from farmers in Sierra Leone illustrates this idea. Interpreting treatment-control differences in prices and quantities purchased from farmers through a model of Cournot competition reveals differentiation between traders is low. Combining this result with quasi-experimental variation in world prices shows that the number of traders competing is 50 percent higher than the number operating in a village. |
Casaburi, L., Reed, T. | | |
2022 | The Effects of STEM Summer Programs on College Major, Persistence, and Graduation for Underrepresented High School Students in the United States |
The federal government and many individual organizations have invested in programs to support diversity in the STEM pipeline, including STEM summer programs for high school students, but there is little rigorous evidence of their efficacy. We fielded a randomized controlled trial to study a suite of such programs targeted to underrepresented high school students at an elite, technical institution. The STEM summer programs differ in their length (one week, six weeks, or six months) and modality (on-site or online). |
Cohodes, S., Ho, H., Robles, S.C. | | |
2022 | Evaluation of the Evolve Digital programme to promote digital adoption in family firms: A Randomised Control Trial |
The ‘Evolve Digital’ trial was developed with the objective of boosting digital adoption in small family firms through identifying a cost-effective, yet productivity-enhancing programme of peer group learning for small family businesses, which can be replicated throughout the country. |
Jibril, H., Mensmann, M., Roper, S., Scott, D. | | |
2022 | Do Startups Benefit from Their Investors’ Reputation? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment |
This study analyses a field experiment conducted on AngelList Talent, a large online search platform for startup jobs. |
Bernstein, S., Mehta, K., Townsend, R.R., & Xu T. | | |
2022 | (Co-)Working in Close Proximity: Knowledge Spillovers and Social Interactions |
We examine the influence of physical proximity on between-startup knowledge spillovers at one of the largest technology co-working hubs in the United States. Relying on the random assignment of office space to the hub's 251 startups, we find that proximity positively influences knowledge spillovers as proxied by the likelihood of adopting an upstream web technology already used by a peer startup. |
Catalini, C., Oettl, A., Roche, M.P. | | |
2022 | Closing the Gender Gap in Patenting: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial at the USPTO |
Women are underrepresented in patenting and the gap is not closing quickly. One major roadblock to progress is a dearth of causal evidence on the potential effectiveness of policies to reduce the gender gap in patenting. Analyzing a randomized control trial at the United States Patent and Trademark Office that was designed to provide additional help to applicants who do not have legal representation, we find heterogeneous causal impacts across gender and technologies on the probability of obtaining patent rights. |
deGrazia, C., Pairolero, N., Pappas, P.-A., Teodorescu, M., Toole, A. | | |
2022 | Missing Information - Why Don’t More Firms Seek Out Business Advice? |
This paper tests whether providing more information on business practices can lead firms to seek out advice and improve their practices. The authors collaborated with a business advice provider in Brazil to implement a randomized experiment with 866 small firms. The treatment groups received different versions of an information sheet that benchmarked business practices to other firms and listed five practices to improve. |
Bruhn, M., Piza, C. | | |
2022 | The Risk of Caution: Evidence from an R&D Experiment |
This experiment tries to understand how managers respond to uncertainty when making research and development decisions. Three experiments were conducted with master’s degree students in a program focused on the intersection of business and technology. |
Carson, R., Graff Zivin, J.S., Louviere, J., Sadoff, S., Shrader Jr, J.G. | | |
2022 | Information Frictions and Firm Take Up of Government Support: A Randomised Controlled Experiment |
This paper studies whether informational frictions prevent firms from accessing government support using a randomised controlled trial. We focus on two Portuguese COVID-19 relief programs, providing (i) wage support for workers who are kept on payroll and (ii) credit lines backed by government guarantees. We randomly assign firms to a treatment providing either simplified information about a program, or a combination information and step-by-step application support. We find a significant treatment effect on take up of the wage support program. |
Custodio, C., Hansman, C., Mendes, D. | | |
2022 | The Impact of Soft-Skills Training for Entrepreneurs in Jamaica |
A randomized control trial with 945 entrepreneurs in Jamaica shows positive shortterm impacts of soft-skills training on business outcomes. The effects are concentrated among men, and disappear twelve months after the training. |
Ubfal, D., Arraiz, I., Beuermann, D., Frese, M., Maffioli, A., Verch, D. | | |
2022 | Evaluation of the Evolve Digital programme to promote digital adoption in family firms: A Randomised Control Trial |
The ‘Evolve Digital’ trial was developed with the objective of boosting digital adoption in small family firms through identifying a cost-effective, yet productivity-enhancing programme of peer group learning for small family businesses, which can be replicated throughout the country. |
Jibril, H., Mensmann, M., Roper, S., Scott, D. | | |
2022 | Closing the Gender Gap in Patenting: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial at the USPTO |
Women are underrepresented in patenting and the gap is not closing quickly. One major roadblock to progress is a dearth of causal evidence on the potential effectiveness of policies to reduce the gender gap in patenting. Analyzing a randomized control trial at the United States Patent and Trademark Office that was designed to provide additional help to applicants who do not have legal representation, we find heterogeneous causal impacts across gender and technologies on the probability of obtaining patent rights. |
deGrazia, C., Pairolero, N., Pappas, P.-A., Teodorescu, M., Toole, A. | | |
2022 | Behavioral Biases and Under-adoption of Business Practices |
The study investigates the role of information constraints and behavioral biases in the under-adoption of key business practices by micro-enterprises in Brazil. We combine a randomized control trial with online surveys to study these questions. |
De Oliveira, P. | | |
2021 | How Do Managers’ Beliefs about New Technologies Evolve? Informational Interventions and the Adoption of Energy-Efficient Stitching Motors in Bangladesh |
This project aims to understand the determinants of adoption of a new technology by firms in Bangladesh's leather goods and footwear industry. |
Chaurey, R., Gu, Y., Nayyar, G., Sharma, S., Verhoogen, E. | | |
2021 | A Scientific Approach to Innovation Management: Evidence from Four Field Experiments |
The model shows that managers and entrepreneurs make better decisions under uncertainty if they adopt a scientific approach in which they formulate and test theories. |
Camuffo, A., Gambardella, A., Messinese, D., Novelli, E., Paolucci, E., Spina, C. | | |
2021 | How Do Managers’ Beliefs about New Technologies Evolve? Informational Interventions and the Adoption of Energy-Efficient Stitching Motors in Bangladesh |
This project aims to understand the determinants of adoption of a new technology by firms in Bangladesh's leather goods and footwear industry. |
Chaurey, R., Gu, Y., Nayyar, G., Sharma, S., Verhoogen, E. | | |
2021 | Diversity and Performance in Entrepreneurial Teams |
This paper studies the role of diversity and performance in the entrepreneurial teams. |
US | Calder-Wang, S., Gompers, P., Huang, K. | |
2021 | How Do Managers’ Beliefs about New Technologies Evolve? Informational Interventions and the Adoption of Energy-Efficient Stitching Motors in Bangladesh |
This project aims to understand the determinants of adoption of a new technology by firms in Bangladesh's leather goods and footwear industry. |
Chaurey, R., Gu, Y., Nayyar, G., Sharma, S., Verhoogen, E. | | |
2021 | What Prevents More Small Firms from Using Professional Business Services ? An Information and Quality-Rating Experiment in Nigeria |
This study asks why more small firms in developing countries do not use the market for professional business services like accounting, marketing, and human resource specialists and asks how this could be altered. |
Anderson S., Mckenzie D. | | |
2021 | How Do Managers’ Beliefs about New Technologies Evolve? Informational Interventions and the Adoption of Energy-Efficient Stitching Motors in Bangladesh |
This project aims to understand the determinants of adoption of a new technology by firms in Bangladesh's leather goods and footwear industry. |
Chaurey, R., Gu, Y., Nayyar, G., Sharma, S., Verhoogen, E. | | |
2021 | Evaluating the Impact of Entrepreneurship Edutainment in Egypt: An experimental approach with peer effects |
This trial measures the impact of an edutainment program specifically designed to promote entrepreneurship among young adult viewers in Egypt. |
Egypt | Barsoum, G., Crépon, B., Gardiner, D., Michel, B., Parienté, W. | |
2021 | Aspirations and Financial Decisions: Experimental Evidence from the Philippines |
This randomised experiment tested the impact of exogenously inducing higher financial aspirations among poor entrepreneurs. |
McKenzie, D., Mohpal, A., Yang D. | | |
2021 | Do capital grants improve microenterprise productivity? |
Do capital grants improve microenterprise productivity? We use the lens of a production function to re-examine two previous randomised controlled trials that allocated capital to microenterprises. We find that productivity is higher for treated firms, and accounts for about 20-30 percent of the revenue effects of capital grants. Although long-run estimates are noisy, point estimates indicate that these productivity effects are sustained six years after the grants. |
Janes, L., Koelle, M., Quinn, S. | | |
2021 | Entrepreneurship education and teacher training in Rwanda |
This study assesses, via a field experiment, how a comprehensive teacher training program affects the delivery of a major entrepreneurship curriculum reform in Rwanda. The reform introduced interactive pedagogy and a focus on business skills in the country’s required upper secondary entrepreneurship course. Both groups received the government’s standard training. In addition, the treatment group was assigned intensive training organized by an NGO for two years. |
Blimpo, M. P., Pugatch, T. | | |
2021 | Building customers and markets for SMEs through online training |
This experiment tests the impact of a program with the main goal of helping firms to attract new customers, expand markets, adapt their business model, and bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic by boosting demand for their products. |
Cusolito, A.P., McKenzie, D. | | |
2021 | Improving Workplace Climate in Large Corporations: A Clustered Randomized Intervention |
This project evaluated the impact of a program aiming to improve the workplace climate in corporations. |
Alan, S., Corekcioglu, G., Sutter, M. | | |
2021 | Online-based entrepreneurship education - Its role and effects: a randomized controlled trial about the effects of an online entrepreneurship... |
A randomised controlled trial has been performed in which 580 randomly selected pupils (aged 14-15) have been randomly assigned to participate in online programmes that focus either on entrepreneurship or on environmental issues. . The short-term results show that the programme focusing on entrepreneurship had a significantly positive influence on the participants’ entrepreneurial intentions, venture creation self-efficacy, entrepreneurial attitudes and perceived knowledge about entrepreneurship |
Denmark | Moberg, S. K. | |
2021 | Modernizing Retailers in an Emerging Market: Investigating Externally-focused and Internally-focused Approaches |
This paper studies the impact of business modernization on the sales performance of traditional retailers. We define modernization as adopting tangible structures and business practices of organized retail chains (for example, exterior signage with store name and logo, or a database to record product-level information). To address our research question, we implement a randomized field experiment in Mexico City with 1148 traditional retail firms. |
Anderson-Macdonald, S., Kankanhalli, S., Iacovone, L., Narayanan, S. | | |
2021 | Making Entrepreneurs: Returns to Training Youth in Hard Versus Soft Business Skills |
This paper studies the medium-term impacts of the Skills for Effective Entrepreneurship Development (SEED) program, an innovative in-residence 3-week mini-MBA program for high school students modeled after western business school curricula and adapted to the Ugandan context. |
Uganda | Chioda, L., Contreras-Loya, D., Gertler, P., Carney, D. | |