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 A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>Using a randomized experiment in Chile we study the impact role models have in the context of a training program for micro-entrepreneurs. We show that being in a group randomly chosen to be visited by a successful alumnus of the program increases household income one year after, mostly due to increased business participation and business income. We also randomized the provision of personalized “consulting sessions” vis-a-vis group sessions, and observe similar effects on income, with the role model intervention being significantly more cost effective and better suited for less experienced businesses.</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links https://www.aeaweb.org/articles 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 What effects do different types of support, including access to an inspirational role model or business planning support, have on the business success of students enrolled on an entrepreneurship training programme? Sample Trial population and sample selection Vulnerable micro-entrepreneurs enrolled on an entrepreneurship training programme. Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups 1712 for the role model experiment; 1347 for the technical assistance experiment. Large overlap between the two samples. Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description The intervention compared the effect of providing micro-entrepreneurs with role models, selected from successful programme alumnus compared to not receiving any visit; and the effect of offering personalised business consulting instead of group-level consulting services during a training programme. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method Together with the application form, a short survey on analytic abilities and financial knowledge was included. This survey included four mathematical questions to capture the analytic abilities of the participants before the training and an additional question that measures the level of financial alphabetization. In the fourth class, before the role model session or the technical assistance were provided, a second baseline survey was conducted. The objective was to characterize the participants in terms of their economic situation, labor supply, entrepreneurship, access to credit and banking, and adoption of financial and management techniques. Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Socioeconomic condition of participants' households, business situation, access to credit and banking, adoption of financial and management techniques</p> Results <p>Access to the one-on-one consulting session led to improvements in some business practices and business knowledge, whereas exposure to the role model left those unaffected.</p> <p>Having access to the role model session or the one-on-one consulting led to higher business survival rates and, consequently, to higher business ownership rates one year after the programme (3 to 5 percentage points increase).</p> <p>Sales and profits also increased, especially for the group exposed to the role model.</p> <p>Receiving a one-on-one consulting session instead of the group consulting session didn’t lead to increases in employment, hours worked or access to credit or banking.</p> <p>One year after the programme, access to the role model session or the one-on-one consulting session had increased monthly household income by a similar amount, of around 15 per cent. This increase was concentrated among those who already had a business at the start of the programme.</p> <p>Exposure to the role model was relatively more effective for newer businesses, while access to one-on-one consulting was especially valuable for older businesses and more educated individuals.</p> <p>The results of the one-on-one consulting didn’t depend on whether the session took place in the classroom or at the business.</p> Intervention costs The cost of the role model intervention and the cost of group-level technical assistance was less than 200 US dollars per class. The cost of the personalized technical assistance was around US$2,000 per class. Cost benefit ratio Reference Lafortune, J., Riutort, J., Tessada, J. (2018). 'Role Models or Individual Consulting: The Impact of Personalizing Micro-entrepreneurship Training'. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. Citation for use in academic references
