Stimulating Managerial Capital in Emerging Markets: The Impact of Business and Financial Literacy for Young Entrepreneurs

By Miriam Bruhn, Bilal Zia. 2011

176 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Identifying the determinants of entrepreneurship is an important research and policy goal, especially in emerging market economies where lack of capital and supporting infrastructure often imposes stringent constraints on business growth. This paper studies the impact of a comprehensive business and financial literacy program on firm outcomes of young entrepreneurs in an emerging post-conflict economy, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The authors conduct a randomized control trial and find that while the training program did not influence business survival, it significantly improved business practices, investments, and loan terms for surviving businesses. Entrepreneurs with higher ex-ante financial literacy further exhibited some improvements in business performance and sales.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Management Information Systems

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/12d409b54dddacc4bfc5c302d5185df7440a94a1

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

In Management Information Systems

Citations in the corpus

Microcredit Under the Microscope: What Have We Learned in the Past Two Decades, and What Do We Need to Know? (2013, background): “Bruhn & Zia (2011) also find that training changes practices but reduces profits (although the effect is not significant).”
The Financial Literacy of Micro Entrepreneurs in South Africa (2014, background): “Bruhn and Zia (2011) investigated the impact of business and financial literacy program on firm outcomes of young entre-preneurs.”
What are We Learning from Business Training and Entrepreneurship Evaluations Around the Developing World? (2012, background): “Mean S.D. Berge et al. (2011) n.r. 1.08 480 384 2102 3083 Males n.r. 1.18 528 432 2586 2876 Females n.r. 1.03 455 354 1847 3160 Bruhn and Zia (2012) n.r. 2.08 700 n.r. n.r. n.r. Calderon et al. (2012) 60 1.6 121 183 398 610 De Mel et al. (2012) 95 0.06 35 17 109 99 Drexler et al. (2012) 60 n.r.…”
How does microfinance enhance entrepreneurial outcomes in emerging economies? The mediating mechanisms of psychological and social capital (2014, background): “Studying the impact of a business and financial literacy training programme on young entrepreneurs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bruhn and Zia (2011) found that although it did not increase business survival, training led to improvements in business practices, business performance and sales.”
Teaching teenagers in finance: does it work? (2015, background): “A large literature has focused on adults and small entrepreneurs and found mixed results, (e.g., Bruhn and Zia, 2011; Cole et al., 2011; Carpena et al., 2011; Collins, 2012; Drexler et al., 2010; Gibson et al., 2012; and Karlan and Valdivia, 2011).”
Entrepreneurial spirits in women and men. The role of financial literacy and digital skills (2019, background): “Bruhn and Zia (2011) and Engström and McKelvie (2017) find that financial literacy led to improved business performance of micro and small firms, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Ecuador, respectively.”
Bank Financing for SMEs – Lessons from the Literature (2013, unknown): “While the literature has traditionally focused on supply-side constraints, the last couple of years have seen several financial literacy randomized control trials (RCTs) for entrepreneurs, including in Uganda (McKenzie and Weber, 2009), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bruhn and Zia, 2013), Peru (Karlan and ”
Do Interventions Targeted at Micro-Entrepreneurs and Small and Medium-Sized Firms Create Jobs? A Systematic Review of the Evidence for Low and Middle Income Countries (2014, background): “intervention, investment was also a core concept emphasized in the training (see Bruhn and Zia, 2011). Only few studies assess the effect on labor supply, in terms of hours worked. The results from these studies are inconclusive. With very few exceptions, most evaluations do not find that entreprene”
The Impact of Financial Literacy on New Venture Survival (2013, background): “Similarly, Bruhn & Zia (2011) found entrepreneurs with higher ex ante financial literacy did show some improvements in business performance and sales.”