Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries

Grover, Arti ; Imbruno, Michele

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: FIRM PERFORMANCE;    BUSINESS SUPPORT;    RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIALS;    ENTREPRENEURSHIP;    ACCESS TO FINANCE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-9461
RP-ID  :  WPS9461

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Countries design programs for supportingfirms, with varying levels of success. Firm growth isconstrained by several factors, such as low firmcapabilities (e.g. management), availability of finance, andaccess to markets. Based on the available experimentalevidence on firm support programs in developing countries,this paper makes three broad observations. First, there arehuge knowledge gaps in understanding the success ofinstruments that alleviate firm constraints. Variousinstruments, such as early-stage equity finance, incubators,and accelerators, remain untested due to the lack of gooddesign, results framework, or monitoring and evaluationsystems and so on. Second, since these interventions areexpensive, policy makers expect such programs to be designedmore effectively to pursue their objectives. However,evidence provides little guidance on the criterion for firmselection because the existing evaluations of instrumentsreveal little information on the heterogeneous impact byfirm characteristics, such as the age, size, sector, andlocation of firms. Third, most interventions seek to addressonly one of the broad constraints faced by firms. To thisend, the paper concludes with a novel proposal for a firmsupport program that attempts to sequentially addressmultiple constraints to firm growth. This program will beimplemented in Malawi through the "Financial Inclusionand Entrepreneurship Scaling" project.