Working Paper: NBER ID: w21310
Authors: Christopher Blattman; Eric P. Green; Julian C. Jamison; M. Christian Lehmann; Jeannie Annan
Abstract: We show that extremely poor, war-affected women in northern Uganda have high returns to a package of $150 cash, five days of business skills training, and ongoing supervision. 16 months after grants, participants doubled their microenterprise ownership and incomes, mainly from petty trading. We also show these ultrapoor have too little social capital, but that group bonds, informal insurance, and cooperative activities could be induced and had positive returns. When the control group received cash and training 20 months later, we varied supervision, which represented half of the program costs. A year later, supervision increased business survival but not consumption.
Keywords: microenterprise; poverty alleviation; cash transfers; Uganda; field experiment
JEL Codes: C93; D13; J24; O12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| microenterprise support program (O12) | microenterprise ownership (O12) |
| microenterprise support program (O12) | income (E25) |
| microenterprise support program (O12) | business survival rates (M13) |
| ongoing supervision (M53) | business survival rates (M13) |
| group encouragement (C92) | frequency and intensity of cooperative activities (P13) |
| frequency and intensity of cooperative activities (P13) | informal finance and labor-sharing (J46) |
| informal finance and labor-sharing (J46) | earnings (J31) |
| supervision (M53) | consumption (E21) |
| supervision (M53) | income (E25) |