Please use this form to submit your study for inclusion into our database. It will be checked by a member of the Innovation Growth Lab team, who may be in contact to ask for more information. Your email address * Your name * Title * The name of the study Short summary In the context of SME's in Colombia, researchers are evaluating the impact on firm performance of a legal reform which will provide a framework for the use and enforcement of movable collateral. Results forthcoming. A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>While Colombia has made a lot of progress in recent years in increasing access to finance for SMEs, entrepreneurs still report that access to finance is among the largest constraints to operating their businesses. According to the 2010 World Bank Enterprise Surveys, over 41% of firms in Colombia identified access to finance as a major constraint to operating their businesses, which is roughly ten percentage points higher than the average for the Latin America and Caribbean region. At the same time, prior to 2013, Colombia had no legal framework to govern the use of moveable assets as collateral, which restricted the ability of SMEs to take out loans secured with movable collateral. The Colombian government, with support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an international development organization that focuses exclusively on the private sector, is introducing a new Secured Transactions Reform, which will provide a legal framework for the use and enforcement of movable collateral. The hope is that, by reducing the risk that banks face in accepting movable property as collateral, the reform will allow SMEs to use vehicles, industrial equipment, inventory, and other movable assets as collateral for their loans.</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links http://www.poverty-action.org/node/6019 Links to any published papers and related discussions Authors * Affiliations Academic and other institutes that the authors of the study are members of Delivery partner Organisations involved in delivering the trial, if appropriate Year Year Year199419951996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026 Month MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec Day Day12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 Journal Journal publishing the study, if available Publication stage * Working Paper Published Ongoing Research Forthcoming Discussion Paper Research theme * Entrepreneurship Innovation Business Growth Country Country or countries where this study took place. Topics What sort of topics does the study cover? Sample attributes Hypotheses / research question Does the Secured Transactions Reform have impact on firm-level outcomes? Sample Trial population and sample selection Randomly selected SMEs in three Colombian metropolitan areas (Bogotá, Cali and Medellin). Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups 500 Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description Provision of extra information and encouragement to apply for loans under new regulation that allows loans to be secured with moveable collateral. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Firm-level outcome such as sales and employment.</p> Results <p>Not yet available.</p> Intervention costs Cost benefit ratio Reference Schoar, A., & Eslava, M., 2015. 'The Impact of Secured Transactions Reform on Access to Capital for Small and Medium Enterprises in Colombia'. Innovations for Poverty Action - Project Registry. Citation for use in academic references
