Local Knowledge and Managerial Capital: Evidence from Kenyan Microenterprises∗

نویسندگان

  • Wyatt Brooks
  • Kevin Donovan
  • Terence R. Johnson
چکیده

We conduct a randomized controlled trial in which we assess different techniques for increasing business knowledge among young, female-run microenterprises in a Kenyan slum. Business owners are randomly assigned to receive classroom business training, a mentor drawn from a set of successful local business owners, or neither. We find that mentorship generates a sustained 25 percent increase in profit relative to control while no such change occurs among the class treatment. The key channel is cost and supplier management. Mentees are 40 percent more likely to switch suppliers in the aftermath of the treatment, increase inventory spending by 20 percent, and have 50 percent lower inventory costs relative to both the class and the control. Taken together, this suggests mentorship provides local information on suppliers that training classes do not. We exploit our mentor selection procedure with a regression discontinuity design to show that there are no changes in scale or business practices among mentors. This implies that the observable gains from the interaction accrue only to the mentee, consistent with models in which learning occurs only in one direction. ∗We thank the Ford Family Program and the Hellen Kellogg Institute for International Studies for financial support, especially Bob Dowd and Dennis Haraszko for their help coordinating the project, and Lawrence Itela, Jackie Olouch-Aridi, and Maurice Sikenyi for their excellent work managing the project in Dandora. Contact Info: 434 Flanner Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556. Brooks: [email protected]; Donovan: [email protected]; Johnson: [email protected]

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تاریخ انتشار 2015