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
By Michael Grimm, A. L. Paffhausen. Social Science Research Network, 2014
151 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Worldwide 600 million jobs are needed over the next 15 years to keep employment rates at their current level. Governments, non-governmental organizations and donors spend on targeted programs and broader policies to enhance employment creation and the creation of new firms. Because most employment in low and middle income countries is in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, these firms are especially targeted by such interventions. Despite these efforts, not much is known about which of these interventions are really effective and under which conditions particular interventions work. This systematic review synthesizes the existing evidence on the impact of these programs. Overall the review shows that creating employment is a very complex challenge. Many conditions have to be met before interventions in favor of individual enterprises do not only improve business practices and performance but also lead to additional jobs. A striking finding is that the study design matters for the impacts found; randomized controlled trials find systematically smaller effects than quasi-experimental studies. A significant shortcoming of the literature is that almost nothing is known about long term effects and cost effectiveness.
Subfields: Business and International Management, Economics and Econometrics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dad77400284eeabeb4771ea301487fe6bb6a8360
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Citations in the corpus
- Interventions to Improve the Labour Market Outcomes of Youth: A Systematic Review of Training, Entrepreneurship Promotion, Employment Services and Subsidized Employment Interventions (2017, background): “Grimm and Paffhausen (2015) assess the direct or indirect effectiveness of interventions aimed at creating employment in micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises in low- and middleincome countries.”
- Occupational Choice in Early Industrializing Societies: Experimental Evidence on the Income and Health Effects of Industrial and Entrepreneurial Work (2016, unknown): “…wage premiums.2 Even some opponents concede the point: a Scholars Against Sweatshop Labor statement (2001) admits that “after allowing for the 1e.g. Banerjee and Duflo, 2011; McKenzie, 2012; Bianchi and Bobba, 2013; Grimm and Paffhausen, 2015; Blattman and Ralston, 2015; Banerjee et al., 2015.”