This Research project examined the growth process of male
microenterprises. Baseline and six-monthly
follow-up surveys of around 1500 male enterprise owners in 18 Divisional Secretariat divisions in 9
districts. Contributed to design and managed translation of questionnaires. Three Interventions were administered:
(1) a matched savings programme (in
partnership with a national-level savings bank)
(2) an ILO-developed business
training programme (in partnership with a business consulting firm)
(3) an
employment incentive programme to randomly selected enterprises.
This
survey project was supplemented by a larger annual follow-up survey of
microenterprises, SME enterprises and wage workers in 31 DS divisions in 20
districts.
RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS
RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS
“Wage
Subsidies for Microenterprises”
Wage subsidies have long being used by
governments as part of their active labour market policies to generate
employment for the disadvantaged or to sustain employment in downturns. In the
context of developing economy labor markets where half or more of the labor
force is employed in enterprises with fewer than five employees, similar
motivations can be given for making short-term wage subsidies to
microenterprise owners to encourage them to make the leap to hiring workers. In
this short paper we describe the implementation and take-up of a randomized
experiment in Sri Lanka motivated by these ideas. It is, to our knowledge, the
first program to offer wage subsidies to microenterprises.
Published in American Economic Review: Papers &
Proceedings, Vol. 100, No. 2, May 2010, pp. 614-618. (downloadable from http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.100.2).
A previous version is available at the World
Bank website and downloadable from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/Wage_Subsidies_for_Microenterprises.pdf