Visiting Speaker: David McKenzie, World Bank
Hosts: Joe Kaboski & Tayrn Dinkelman
Presentation Title: Long-term and lasting impacts of personal initiative training on entrepreneurial success
Abstract:
A randomized experiment in Togo found that personal initiative training for small businesses
resulted in large and significant impacts for both men and women after two years (Campos et al,
2017). We revisit these entrepreneurs after seven years, and find long-lasting average impacts of
personal initiative training of $91 higher profits per month, which is larger than the 2-year impacts.
However, these long-term impacts are very different for men and women: the impact for men
grows over time as they accumulate more capital and increase self-efficacy, whereas the impact
for women dissipates, and capital build-up is much more limited.