Event
Annual Research Prizes Award Ceremony
3:00 pm BST , 25 September 2025
We are thrilled to invite you to join the 2024 IGL Research Prize Award Ceremony on Thursday, September 25, at 4:00 PM CEST.
These prizes, supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, recognise excellence in experimental research in science, innovation, and productivity – celebrating work that not only advances methodological frontiers but also demonstrates potential to shape public policy.
During the webinar, prize winners will present their papers, followed by brief discussions by our Director – Albert Bravo-Biosca, Hyunjin Kim, Sharique Hasan, and Rembrand Koning.
2024 Winners
Best experimental paper
A scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision-making: Large-scale replication and extension
Arnaldo Camuffo, Alfonso Gambardella, Danilo Messinese, Elena Novelli, Emilio Paolucci, Chiara Spina
Abstract: This article runs a large-scale replication of Camuffo and colleagues in 2020, involving 759 firms in four randomized control trials. The larger sample generates novel and more precise insights about the teachability and implications of a scientific approach in entrepreneurship. We observe a positive impact on idea termination and results that are consistent with a nonlinear effect on radical pivots, with treated firms running few over no or repeated pivots. We provide a theoretical interpretation of the empirical results: the scientific approach enhances entrepreneurs’ efficiency in searching for viable ideas and raises their
methodic doubt because, like scientists, they realize that there may be alternative scenarios from the ones that they theorize.
Best Experimental Paper by Junior Scholars
Female Entrepreneurship and Professional Networks
Edward Asiedu, Monica Lambon-Quayefio, Francesca Truffa and Ashley Wong
Abstract: Female-owned businesses continue to be smaller and less profitable than male-owned firms. We conduct an RCT in Ghana on a sample of 1,771 growth-oriented female entrepreneurs to investigate the effect of online networking groups on firm performance. We find that access to online networking opportunities leads to greater innovation, better business practices and higher profits by 21%. The increase in profits is concentrated in the upper tail of the distribution. The treatment shifts business collaborations from friends and family members to business network members in the intervention. We find the largest effects for those in groups with more-educated, higher-quality, and more diverse entrepreneurs. Our findings reveal that a low-cost, light-touch online intervention that increases networking opportunities can effectively improve outcomes of female-owned firms.
Best Experimental Paper for Potential Policy Impact
Long-term and Lasting Impacts of Personal Initiative Training on Entrepreneurial Success
Francisco Campos, Michael Frese, Leonardo Iacovone, Hillary Johnson, David McKenzie, and Mona Mensmann
Abstract: A randomized experiment in Togo found that personal initiative training for small businesses resulted in large and significant impacts for both men and women after two years. We revisit these entrepreneurs after seven years, and find long-lasting average impacts of personal initiative training of $91 higher profits per month, which is larger than the 2-year impacts. However, these long-term impacts are very different for men and women: the impact for men grows over time as they accumulate more capital and increase self-efficacy, whereas the impact for women is flat or
declines, and capital build-up is much more limited.