Entrepreneurs in developing countries face a series of diverse constraints to growth, including lack of access to business skills, markets, and finance. The binding constraints vary from firm to firm, implying that the returns to possible interventions are likely to be heterogeneous.
IGL Trials Database
IGL curates a database with randomised controlled trials in the field of innovation, entrepreneurship and growth. Browse our list of topics, see it as a map, or use the search function below.
2023
We study how local public infrastructure investment affects neighborhood economies. By tracking the impacts of US$68 million of randomized investments in Mexican municipalities, we document how government investment leads to sustained increases in the size and profitability of treated private-sector companies. Initially, wages rise to compensate for higher costs of living, inefficient firms die, and more efficient firms grow faster. Over the subsequent decade treated firms increase their capital stocks and revenues, suggesting durable improvements in the structure of the local economy.
2023
We evaluate the impact of a training program aimed at improving the relational atmosphere in the workplace. The program encourages prosocial behavior and the use of professional language, focusing primarily on leaders’ behavior and leader-subordinate interactions. We implement this program using a clustered randomized design involving over 3,000 headquarters employees of 20 large corporations in Turkey. We evaluate the program with respect to employee separation, pro- and antisocial behavior, the prevalence of support networks, and perceived workplace climate.
2023
This study examines the influence of information constraints on firms’ efficiency in using digital technologies, focusing on business websites. Through two natural field experiments in the UK, we provide firms with benchmarked performance information on their websites. The experimental designs enable us to assess the salience of the information provided and heterogeneity linked to prior experience and catch-up potential.
2023
We show in a large-scale field experiment that a brief exposure to female role models working in scientific fields affects high school students’ perceptions and choices of undergraduate major. The classroom interventions reduced the prevalence of stereotypical views on jobs in science and gender differences in abilities. They also made high-achieving girls in grade 12 more likely to enrol in selective and male-dominated science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs in college.
2023
Drawing the attention of innovators to climate change is important for green innovation. We report an email field experiment with MIT using messages about the impact of climate change to invite innovators (SBIR grantees) to apply to a technology competition. We vary our messages on the time frame and scale of the human cost of climate change across scientifically valid scenarios. Innovator attention (clicks) is sensitive to climate change messaging. These changes in clicks also predict higher application rates.
2023
We document interest in labor reallocation among small firm owners in Ghana; 60% and 41%, respectively, self-report willingness to hire or work for the average local firm owner. Firm owners also exhibit high willingness-to-pay for information on a random subset of hiring firms and jobseeking firm owners, during a Becker-Degroot-Marschak exercise. Conditionally random variation in access to this information generates immediate labor adjustments within and between firms, though rarely of firm owners themselves, and impacts firm closure 5-months post-intervention.
2023
First, we will recruit people to provide advice on whether to invest in actual start-up firms and to provide a justification for their decision. We create pairs of advisors that provide the same recommendation but differ by race and gender. Next, we recruit participants for the role of investors. Each participant is endowed with one dollar for each of the four investment rounds. The adviser provides her/his assessment and investment recommendation. The investor then decides how much to invest, and the outcome is revealed.
2023
Can a set of low-cost behavioural nudges encourage more small businesses to adopt productivity-raising digital technologies? This randomised controlled trial sought to test whether businesses could be nudged into using a cloud-based system to improve the efficiency of invoice processing. All participants in the trial were offered access to the system free of charge for a 12-month period, with a treatment group receiving weekly email reminders to make use of the system.
2023
Effective managers play a vital role in successful teams by creating a positive and productive team environment, assigning tasks, setting clear goals and expectations, and facilitating communication and collaboration among team members. In this paper, we employ a distinctive experimental design to identify the marginal advantage of effective managers, and the specific attributes that yield the greatest benefits to team performance.
2023
While evidence indicates that the notice and comment (N&C) process improves regulatory compliance by increasing trust in government, there is reason to doubt this mechanism’s viability in the digital realm. The lack of direct human interactions online can lead participating firms to feel unheard and unengaged. As a result, online N&C efforts can actually undermine firms’ views of the government’s regulatory authority and hamper efforts towards compliance.
2023
We study the allocation and productivity consequences of training production line supervisors in soft skills via a randomized controlled trial. Consistent with standard practice for training investments within firms, we asked middle managers – who sit above supervisors in the hierarchy – to nominate members of their supervisory team for training. Program access was randomized within these recommendation rankings. Highly recommended supervisors experienced no productivity gains; in contrast, less recommended supervisors’ productivity increased 12% relative to controls.
2023
Although entrepreneurship training programs are designed to help necessity entrepreneurs acquire skills and capabilities to take entrepreneurial action, participants in these programs often fail to do so. In partnership with a local government agency, we conducted a randomized field experiment involving 165 entrepreneurs in rural Tanzania where in addition to providing technical-skills training, approximately half of the participants also received “growth mindset” psychological training.
2023
Gender differences in research funding exist, but bias evidence is elusive and findings are contradictory. Bias has multiple dimensions, but in evaluation processes, bias would be the outcome of the reviewers’ assessment. Evidence in observational approaches is often based either on outcome distributions or on modeling bias as the residual. Causal claims are usually mixed with simple statistical associations.
2023
Can artificial intelligence (AI) assist human employees in increasing employee creativity? Drawing on research on AI-human collaboration, job design, and employee creativity, we examine AI assistance in the form of a sequential division of labor within organizations: in a task, AI handles the initial portion which is well-codified and repetitive, and employees focus on the subsequent portion involving higher-level problem-solving. First, we provide causal evidence from a field experiment conducted at a telemarketing company.
2023
Many school systems across the globe turned to online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. This context differs significantly from the prepandemic situation in which massive open online courses attracted large numbers of voluntary learners who struggled with completion. Students who are provided online courses by their high schools also have their behavior determined by actions of their teachers and school system.
2023
Structured management practices are robustly correlated with superior performance, but while some firms change practices quickly, wide dispersion of management quality persists. Uniquely, combining evidence from two novel business surveys and a failed management mentoring field experiment, we observe firms’ intentions to improve their management practices and firms’ subjective barriers to improving their management practices. We find clear evidence of positive selection into a free management mentoring scheme: the worst managed firms were the least likely to seek help.
2023
SMS-based business trainings are becoming a popular tool to remotely support microentrepreneurs in low-income settings due to their scalability and low costs. However, little evidence exists on the effectiveness of such trainings to improve business outcomes. In this study, I evaluate a field experiment in which access to an SMS-based training was randomized across 4,700 micro-entrepreneurs in Kenya. After three months, I find positive effects on knowledge and adoption of best practices.
2023
The persistently high employment share of the informal sector makes entrepreneurship a necessity for youth in many developing countries. We exploit exogenous variation in the implementation of Rwanda's entrepreneurship education reform in secondary schools to evaluate its effect on student economic outcomes up to three years after graduation. Using a randomized controlled trial, we evaluated a three-year intensive training for entrepreneurship teachers, finding pedagogical changes as intended and increased entrepreneurial activity among students.
2023
Agricultural extension programs often train a few farmers and count on diffusion through social networks for the innovation to spread. However, if markets are imperfectly integrated, this may also inflict negative externalities. In a two-step experiment of an agronomy training program among Rwandan coffee farmers, we first randomize the concentration of trainees at the village level and then randomly select within each village. Knowledge increased, and yields were 6.7% higher for trained farmers.
2023
India is host to 63 million Micro, Small and Medium scale Enterprises (MSMEs), contributing to a large share of employment, industrial output as well as high volume of emissions per unit of output. Therefore, adoption of energy efficient (EE) technologies by MSMEs is crucial in improving not only their competitiveness through cost reduction but also worker wellbeing and productivity through improvements in the work environment. Enterprise owners most often do not internalize the benefits of the latter; like productivity gains due to reduction in exposure of workers to heat, pollution etc.
2023
Early-stage researchers (ESRs - PhDs and Post-docs) are repeatedly touted as an untapped source of high-potential entrepreneurship. However, most entrepreneurship initiatives have either focused on undergraduate students or on consolidated scientists (PIs and professors). We argue that attempts to translate these initiatives to engage early-stage researchers (ESRs) are missing the positive impact of entrepreneurship beyond the direct commercialization of scientific outputs.
2023
We use a field experiment to test whether financial incentives can improve the quality of apprenticeship training. Trainers (firm owners) in the treatment group participated in a tournament incentive scheme where they received a payment based on their apprentices’ rank-order performance on a skills assessment. Trainers in the control group received a fixed payment based on their apprentices’ participation in the assessment. Performance on the assessment was higher in the treatment group.
2023
Innovation plays a pivotal role in fostering economic growth, yet there is a limited understanding of whether it can be taught. I conduct a randomized evaluation of an education program implemented by a state government and a nonprofit organization, providing an opportunity to 6,224 8th-grade students from disadvantaged backgrounds to develop frugal innovations for global and local problems. To assess students’ innovative ability, I created a novel scale with inputs from experienced inventors and used a lab-in-the-field game from experimental economics.
2022
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.
2022
We study the demand for government participation in China’s venture capital and private equity market. We conduct a large-scale, non-deceptive field experiment in collaboration with the leading industry service provider, through which we survey both sides of the market: the capital investors and the private firms managing the invested capital by deploying it to high-growth entrepreneurs. Our respondents together account for nearly $1 trillion in assets under management.
2022
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.
2022
What is preventing entrepreneurs and managers from forming peer connections themselves? This paper argues that entrepreneurs may be under-networked because they lack the necessary social skills that allow them to match efficiently with knowledgeable peers.
2022
I investigate how firms should design human/AI collaboration to ensure human workers remain engaged in their activities. I developed a formal model that explores the tension between AI quality and human effort. As AI quality increases, humans have fewer incentives to exert effort and remain attentive, allowing the AI to substitute, rather than augment their performance. Thus, high-performingalgorithms may do worse than lower-performing ones in maximizing combined output.
2022
We study direct productivity changes and spillovers after a randomized training program for the frontline workers in a Colombian government agency. While trained workers improved their individual production, we also find substantial spillovers that affected managers' productivity. We use email data and a survey to explore the mechanisms behind these spillovers and find that managers' increased output arises from reductions in the need to help lower level employees.