IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cge/wacage/212.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Generates Growth in Microenterprises? Experimental Evidence on Capital, Labor and Training

Author

Listed:
  • Mel, Suresh de

    (University of Peradeniya,)

  • McKenzie, David

    (World Bank Research Group)

  • Woodruff, Christopher

    (The University of Warwick)

Abstract

Previous research shows that capital injections lead to higher profits in microenterprises, but to little sustained growth. We conduct an experiment which provides overlapping treatments designed to provide capital, incentives to hire new employees and management training. Working with a sample of 1,525 Sri Lankan enterprises with two or fewer paid employees at baseline, we find that the treatments have largely temporary effects, suggesting that while they may speed convergence to a steady state, they do not appear to put firms on a different growth path. Wage incentives lead to higher levels of employment, but not to higher profits, suggesting that the typical firm does not face constraints to hiring which result in the marginal product of labor exceeding the market wage rate. We use data from surveys of wage workers and SME owners conducted at the same time as the baseline survey to estimate characteristics associated with entrepreneurial ability. We find that highability firms, if anything, benefit less from the treatments. The results are consistent with the view of the world illuminated by Lucas‟ 1978 model of firm size distribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Mel, Suresh de & McKenzie, David & Woodruff, Christopher, 2014. "What Generates Growth in Microenterprises? Experimental Evidence on Capital, Labor and Training," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 212, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/212-2014_woodruff.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miriam Bruhn & David McKenzie, 2009. "In Pursuit of Balance: Randomization in Practice in Development Field Experiments," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 200-232, October.
    2. Fafchamps, Marcel & McKenzie, David & Quinn, Simon & Woodruff, Christopher, 2014. "Microenterprise growth and the flypaper effect: Evidence from a randomized experiment in Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 211-226.
    3. Brian Bell & Richard Blundell & John Reenen, 1999. "Getting the Unemployed Back to Work: The Role of Targeted Wage Subsidies," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(3), pages 339-360, August.
    4. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
    5. McKenzie, David, 2012. "Beyond baseline and follow-up: The case for more T in experiments," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 210-221.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Suresh de Mel & David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2019. "Labor Drops: Experimental Evidence on the Return to Additional Labor in Microenterprises," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 202-235, January.
    2. de Mel, Suresh & McKenzie, David & Woodruff, Christopher, 2014. "Business training and female enterprise start-up, growth, and dynamics: Experimental evidence from Sri Lanka," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 199-210.
    3. Emma Riley, 2022. "Resisting Social Pressure in the Household Using Mobile Money: Experimental Evidence on Microenterprise Investment in Uganda," CSAE Working Paper Series 2022-04, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    4. Campos, Francisco & Goldstein, Markus & McKenzie, David, 2023. "How should the government bring small firms into the formal system? Experimental evidence from Malawi," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    5. Campos,Francisco Moraes Leitao & Goldstein,Markus P. & Mckenzie,David J. & Campos,Francisco Moraes Leitao & Goldstein,Markus P. & Mckenzie,David J., 2015. "Short-term impacts of formalization assistance and a bank information session on business registration and access to finance in Malawi," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7183, The World Bank.
    6. María laura Alzúa & Guillermo Cruces & Carolina Lopez, 2016. "Long-Run Effects Of Youth Training Programs: Experimental Evidence From Argentina," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(4), pages 1839-1859, October.
    7. Croke,Kevin & Garcia Mora,Maria Elena & Goldstein,Markus P. & Mensah,Edouard Romeo & O'Sullivan,Michael B., 2020. "Up before Dawn : Experimental Evidence from a Cross-Border Trader Training at the Democratic Republic of Congo?Rwanda Border," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9123, The World Bank.
    8. Suresh de Mel & David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2013. "The Demand for, and Consequences of, Formalization among Informal Firms in Sri Lanka," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 122-150, April.
    9. David McKenzie, 2017. "Identifying and Spurring High-Growth Entrepreneurship: Experimental Evidence from a Business Plan Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2278-2307, August.
    10. Pedro Carneiro & Sokbae Lee & Daniel Wilhelm, 2020. "Optimal data collection for randomized control trials [Microcredit impacts: Evidence from a randomized microcredit program placement experiment by Compartamos Banco]," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 23(1), pages 1-31.
    11. Shah,Manisha & Seager,Jennifer & Montalvao Machado,Joao H. C. & Goldstein,Markus P., 2022. "Two Sides of Gender : Sex, Power, and Adolescence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10072, The World Bank.
    12. Eszter Czibor & David Jimenez‐Gomez & John A. List, 2019. "The Dozen Things Experimental Economists Should Do (More of)," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 371-432, October.
    13. Gazeaud, Jules & Khan, Nausheen & Mvukiyehe, Eric & Sterck, Olivier, 2023. "With or without him? Experimental evidence on cash grants and gender-sensitive trainings in Tunisia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    14. John Hoddinott & Susanna Sandström & Joanna Upton, 2018. "The Impact of Cash and Food Transfers: Evidence from a Randomized Intervention in Niger," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1032-1049.
    15. Nicholas Bloom & Benn Eifert & Aprajit Mahajan & David McKenzie & John Roberts, 2013. "Does Management Matter? Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(1), pages 1-51.
    16. Bird, Samuel S. & Carter, Michael R. & Lybbert, Travis J. & Mathenge, Mary & Njagi, Timothy & Tjernström, Emilia, 2022. "Filling a niche? The maize productivity impacts of adaptive breeding by a local seed company in Kenya," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    17. Adjognon,Guigonan Serge & Nguyen Huy,Tung & Guthoff,Jonas Christoph & van Soest,Daan, 2022. "Incentivizing Social Learning for the Diffusion of Climate-Smart Agricultural Techniques," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10041, The World Bank.
    18. Sayantan Ghosal & Smarajit Jana & Anandi Mani & Sandip Mitra & Sanchari Roy, 2022. "Sex Workers, Stigma, and Self-Image: Evidence from Kolkata Brothels," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(3), pages 431-448, May.
    19. Cettolin, Elena & Cole, Kym & Dalton, Patricio, 2022. "Improving Workers’ Performance in Small Firms : A Randomized Experiment on Goal Setting in Ghana," Discussion Paper 2022-028, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    20. Yuehao Bai & Jizhou Liu & Max Tabord-Meehan, 2022. "Inference for Matched Tuples and Fully Blocked Factorial Designs," Papers 2206.04157, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Microenterprises;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:212. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jane Snape (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.