Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Impact assessments in finance and private sector development : what have we learned and what should we learn ?

Contents:

Author Info

  • McKenzie, David

Abstract

Until recently rigorous impact evaluations have been rare in the area of finance and private sector development. One reason for this is the perception that many policies and projects in this area lend themselves less to formal evaluations. However, a vanguard of new impact evaluations on areas as diverse as fostering microenterprise growth, microfinance, rainfall insurance, and regulatory reform demonstrates that in many circumstances serious evaluation is possible. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize and distil the policy and implementation lessons emerging from these studies, use them to demonstrate the feasibility of impact evaluations in a broader array of topics, and thereby help prompt new impact evaluations for projects going forward.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2009/05/27/000158349_20090527130847/Rendered/PDF/WPS4944.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 4944.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 01 May 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4944

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433
Phone: (202) 477-1234
Email:
Web page: http://www.worldbank.org/
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: Access to Finance; Debt Markets; Banks&Banking Reform; Microfinance;

Other versions of this item:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. de Mel, Suresh & McKenzie, David & Woodruff, Christopher, 2008. "Are women more credit constrained ? experimental evidence on gender and microenterprise returns," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4746, The World Bank.
  2. Shahidur R. Khandker, 1998. "Using Microcredit to Advance Women," World Bank Other Operational Studies 11523, The World Bank.
  3. James J. Heckman & Sergio Urzua & Edward J. Vytlacil, 2006. "Understanding Instrumental Variables in Models with Essential Heterogeneity," NBER Working Papers 12574, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Adriana Kugler & Juan F. Jimeno & Virginia Hernanz, 2002. "Employment consequences of restrictive permanent contracts: Evidence from Spanish labor market reforms," Economics Working Papers 651, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
  5. Dean Karlan & Jonathan Zinman, 2007. "Expanding Credit Access: Using Randomized Supply Decisions to Estimate the Impacts," Working Papers 108, Center for Global Development.
  6. Xavier Gin� & Inessa Love, 2010. "Do Reorganization Costs Matter for Efficiency? Evidence from a Bankruptcy Reform in Colombia," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(4), pages 833 - 864.
  7. de Mel, Suresh & McKenzie, David J. & Woodruff, Christopher, 2009. "Measuring microenterprise profits: Must we ask how the sausage is made?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 19-31, January.
  8. Leonardi, Marco & Pica, Giovanni, 2007. "Employment Protection Legislation and Wages," IZA Discussion Papers 2680, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  9. Robert M. Townsend & Shawn Cole & Jeremy Tobacman & Xavier Gine & James Ian Vickery & Petia Topalova, 2012. "Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India," IMF Working Papers 12/195, International Monetary Fund.
  10. Bruhn, Miriam, 2008. "License to sell : the effect of business registration reform on entrepreneurial activity in Mexico," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4538, The World Bank.
  11. Kaplan, David S. & Piedra, Eduardo & Seira, Enrique, 2007. "Entry regulation and business start-ups : evidence from Mexico," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4322, The World Bank.
  12. Angus S. Deaton, 2009. "Instruments of development: Randomization in the tropics, and the search for the elusive keys to economic development," NBER Working Papers 14690, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Dean Karlan & Jonathan Zinman, 2004. "Observing unobservables: Identifying information asymmetries with a consumer credit field experiment," Natural Field Experiments 00283, The Field Experiments Website.
  14. Gin, Xavier & Yang, Dean, 2009. "Insurance, credit, and technology adoption: Field experimental evidencefrom Malawi," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 1-11, May.
  15. Abidoye, Babatunde & Orazem, Peter F. & Vodopivec, Milan, 2009. "Firing cost and firm size : a study of Sri Lanka's severance pay system," Social Protection Discussion Papers 50671, The World Bank.
  16. David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2008. "Experimental Evidence on Returns to Capital and Access to Finance in Mexico," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 22(3), pages 457-482, November.
  17. Heckman, James & Navarro-Lozano, Salvador, 2003. "Using matching, instrumental variables and control functions to estimate economic choice models," Working Paper Series 2003:4, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
  18. Almeida, Rita & Galasso, Emanuela, 2007. "Jump-starting self-employment ? Evidence among welfare participants in Argentina," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4270, The World Bank.
  19. Dean Karlan & Martin Valdivia, 2011. "Teaching Entrepreneurship: Impact of Business Training on Microfinance Clients and Institutions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(2), pages 510-527, May.
  20. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Andrew F. Newman, 1990. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Discussion Papers 911, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
  21. de Mel, Suresh & McKenzie, David & Woodruff, Christopher, 2008. "Who Are the Microenterprise Owners? Evidence from Sri Lanka on Tokman v. de Soto," IZA Discussion Papers 3511, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  22. Inha Oh & Jeong-Dong Lee & Almas Heshmati & Gyoung-Gyu Choi, 2009. "Evaluation of credit guarantee policy using propensity score matching," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 335-351, October.
  23. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
  24. McKenzie, David & Sakho, Yaye Seynabou, 2007. "Does It Pay Firms to Register for Taxes? The Impact of Formality on Firm Profitability," IZA Discussion Papers 3179, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  25. 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.
  26. Douglas Gollin, 2001. "Getting Income Shares Right," Department of Economics Working Papers 2001-11, Department of Economics, Williams College.
  27. Demirgüç-Kunt, A. & Beck, T.H.L. & Honohan, P., 2008. "Finance for all?: Policies and pitfalls in expanding access," Open Access publications from Tilburg University urn:nbn:nl:ui:12-3508393, Tilburg University.
  28. Banerjee, Abhijit & Duflo, Esther, 2006. "The Economic Lives of the Poor," CEPR Discussion Papers 5968, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  29. Robert Cull & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Jonathan Morduch, 2009. "Microfinance Meets the Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 167-92, Winter.
  30. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-75, March.
  31. David Kaplan & Eduardo Piedra & Enrique Seira, 2006. "Are Burdensome Registration Procedures an Important Barrier on Firm Creation? Evidence from Mexico," Discussion Papers 06-013, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
  32. Xavier Giné & Robert Townsend & James Vickery, 2008. "Patterns of Rainfall Insurance Participation in Rural India," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 22(3), pages 539-566, October.
  33. Leonardi, Marco & Pica, Giovanni, 2010. "Who Pays for It? The Heterogeneous Wage Effects of Employment Protection Legislation," IZA Discussion Papers 5335, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  34. Fajnzylber, Pablo & Maloney, William F. & Rojas, Gabriel V. Montes, 2006. "Releasing constraints to growth or pushing on a string ? the impact of credit, training, business associations, and taxes on the performance of Mexican micro-firms," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3807, The World Bank.
  35. Rodrik, Dani, 2008. "The New Development Economics: We Shall Experiment, but How Shall We Learn?," Working Paper Series rwp08-055, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
  36. Mark M. Pitt & Shahidur R. Khandker, 1998. "The Impact of Group-Based Credit Programs on Poor Households in Bangladesh: Does the Gender of Participants Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 958-996, October.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Nicholas Bloom & Benn Eifert & Aprajit Mahajan & David McKenzie & John Roberts, 2011. "Does Management Matter? Evidence from India," CEP Discussion Papers dp1042, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  2. Benhassine, Najy & Raballand, Gaël, 2009. "Beyond ideological cleavages: A unifying framework for industrial policies and other public interventions," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 293-309, December.
  3. Cadot, Olivier & Fernandes, Ana & Gourdon, Julien & Mattoo, Aaditya, 2011. "Impact Evaluation of Trade Interventions: Paving the Way," CEPR Discussion Papers 8638, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  4. McKenzie, David & Woodruff, Christopher, 2013. "What are we learning from business training and entrepreneurship evaluations around the developing world?," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 115, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
  5. Paul Winters & Lina Salazar & Alessandro Maffioli, 2010. "Designing Impact Evaluations for Agricultural Projects," SPD Working Papers 1007, Inter-American Development Bank, Office of Strategic Planning and Development Effectiveness (SPD).
  6. Montgomery, Heather & Weiss, John, 2011. "Can Commercially-oriented Microfinance Help Meet the Millennium Development Goals? Evidence from Pakistan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 87-109, January.
  7. Campos, Francisco & Coville, Aidan & Fernandes, Ana M. & Goldstein, Markus & McKenzie, David, 2012. "Learning from the experiments that never happened : lessons from trying to conduct randomized evaluations of matching grant programs in Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6296, The World Bank.
  8. McKenzie, David, 2011. "How can we learn whether firm policies are working in africa ? challenges (and solutions?) for experiments and structural models," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5632, The World Bank.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4944

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Roula I. Yazigi).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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