It's true that researchers have bemoaned the seemingly excessive training of people in developing countries. So, why inflict more boring training on more barely-willing participants?
Because it seems that entrepreneurship training does work, for youth and for the most marginalized. My co-authors and I explore the effects of a nine-month training program on youth in Tanzania, focusing on outcomes such as financial literacy and employment skills. Although there are plenty of labor market outcomes that may benefit from a program such as this, we explore the intermediary labor mechanisms that should affect long-term outcomes such as employment and income.
We presented our paper a couple of weeks ago at MidDev (Midwest International Economic Development Conference) and got some great comments. Here is our working draft.
The notion that entrepreneurship training may be the most effective for a more marginalized community (e.g. school drop-outs, women, youth, lower caste) is supported by McKenzie and Woodruff's (2005) comprehensive review of job training programs in developing countries. Field et al (2010) and Blattman et al (a nice summary here) also both show that business ownership among marginalized women is higher after entrepreneurship training.
We find significant positive effects on participants' reported employment skills, savings knowledge and financial literacy through propensity score matching (PSM) analysis. Although PSM isn't the most ideal way to establish causality, we think we've established a valid effect through exploring a number of methodologies (various matching methods, cross-sectional linear regression and individual fixed effects).
Take a read and let us know if you think otherwise!
Because it seems that entrepreneurship training does work, for youth and for the most marginalized. My co-authors and I explore the effects of a nine-month training program on youth in Tanzania, focusing on outcomes such as financial literacy and employment skills. Although there are plenty of labor market outcomes that may benefit from a program such as this, we explore the intermediary labor mechanisms that should affect long-term outcomes such as employment and income.
We presented our paper a couple of weeks ago at MidDev (Midwest International Economic Development Conference) and got some great comments. Here is our working draft.
The notion that entrepreneurship training may be the most effective for a more marginalized community (e.g. school drop-outs, women, youth, lower caste) is supported by McKenzie and Woodruff's (2005) comprehensive review of job training programs in developing countries. Field et al (2010) and Blattman et al (a nice summary here) also both show that business ownership among marginalized women is higher after entrepreneurship training.
We find significant positive effects on participants' reported employment skills, savings knowledge and financial literacy through propensity score matching (PSM) analysis. Although PSM isn't the most ideal way to establish causality, we think we've established a valid effect through exploring a number of methodologies (various matching methods, cross-sectional linear regression and individual fixed effects).
Take a read and let us know if you think otherwise!
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