IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/exe/wpaper/2110.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Business Grants Mitigate a Crisis? Evidence from Youth Entrepreneurs in Kenya during COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Yanina Domenella

    (The World Bank)

  • Julian C. Jamison

    (Department of Economics, University of Exeter)

  • Abla Safir

    (The World Bank)

  • Bilal Zia

    (The World Bank)

Abstract

COVID-19 was a major shock to youth entrepreneurs and their businesses in Kenya. We study the causal impact of grants—worth two months of baseline business revenue—and business development services as potential mitigation measures. Using multiple rounds of phone surveys up to seven months from the start of the pandemic, the analysis finds that youth who are assigned business grants or a combination of grants and business development services are significantly more likely to maintain a business, earn more revenue and profits, retain employees, and report higher confidence and satisfaction with life. There are no corresponding effects of business development services alone, although the follow-up period is extremely short for training effects to materialize. These results suggest that cash infusion for young entrepreneurs in times of an aggregate shock can be instrumental in moderating its immediate harmful impacts.

Suggested Citation

  • Yanina Domenella & Julian C. Jamison & Abla Safir & Bilal Zia, 2021. "Can Business Grants Mitigate a Crisis? Evidence from Youth Entrepreneurs in Kenya during COVID-19," Discussion Papers 2110, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:exe:wpaper:2110
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://exetereconomics.github.io/RePEc/dpapers/DP2110.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher Blattman & Nathan Fiala & Sebastian Martinez, 2020. "The Long-Term Impacts of Grants on Poverty: Nine-Year Evidence from Uganda's Youth Opportunities Program," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 287-304, September.
    2. Bottan, Nicolas & Hoffmann, Bridget & Vera-Cossio, Diego A., 2021. "Stepping up during a crisis: The unintended effects of a noncontributory pension program during the Covid-19 pandemic," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    3. World Bank, 2013. "World Development Report 2014 [Informe sobre el desarrollo mundial 2014, Riesgo y oportunidad : la administración del riesgo como instrumento de desarrollo - Panorama general]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 16092.
    4. Suresh de Mel & David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2010. "Who are the Microenterprise Owners? Evidence from Sri Lanka on Tokman versus De Soto," NBER Chapters, in: International Differences in Entrepreneurship, pages 63-87, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. McKenzie, David, 2012. "Beyond baseline and follow-up: The case for more T in experiments," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 210-221.
    6. Mahmud, Mahreen & Riley, Emma, 2021. "Household response to an extreme shock: Evidence on the immediate impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on economic outcomes and well-being in rural Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    7. Al Mouskit Akim & Firmin Ayivodji & Jeffrey Kouton, 2021. "Do Remittances Mitigate COVID-19 Employment Shock on Food Insecurity? Evidence from Nigeria," Working Papers 4, Africa Institute for Research in Economics and Social Sciences.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Domenella,Yanina Eliana & Jamison,Julian C & Safir,Abla & Zia,Bilal Husnain, 2021. "Can Business Grants Mitigate a Crisis ? Evidence from Youth Entrepreneurs in Kenya during COVID-19," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9874, The World Bank.
    2. Gupta, Prankur & Stein, Daniel & Longman, Kyla & Lanthorn, Heather & Bergmann, Rico & Nshakira-Rukundo, Emmanuel & Rutto, Noel & Kahura, Christine & Kananu, Winfred & Posner, Gabrielle & Zhao, K.J. & , 2024. "Cash transfers amid shocks: A large, one-time, unconditional cash transfer to refugees in Uganda has multidimensional benefits after 19 months," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    3. Premand, Patrick & Stoeffler, Quentin, 2022. "Cash transfers, climatic shocks and resilience in the Sahel," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    4. Gazeaud, Jules & Khan, Nausheen & Mvukiyehe, Eric & Sterck, Olivier, 2023. "With or without him? Experimental evidence on cash grants and gender-sensitive trainings in Tunisia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    5. Blattman, Christopher & Dercon, Stefan & Franklin, Simon, 2022. "Impacts of industrial and entrepreneurial jobs on youth: 5-year experimental evidence on factory job offers and cash grants in Ethiopia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    6. Fiala, Nathan & Rose, Julian & Aryemo, Filder & Peters, Jörg, 2022. "The (very) long-run impacts of cash grants during a crisis," Ruhr Economic Papers 961, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    7. Ann M. Furbush & Anna Josephson & Talip Kilic & Jeffrey D. Michler, 2024. "Coping or Hoping? Livelihood Diversification and Food Insecurity in the COVID-19 Pandemic," Papers 2409.02285, arXiv.org.
    8. Johannes Haushofer & Robert Mudida & Jeremy P. Shapiro, 2020. "The Comparative Impact of Cash Transfers and a Psychotherapy Program on Psychological and Economic Well-being," NBER Working Papers 28106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Giacomo De Giorgi & Matthew Ploenzke & Aminur Rahman, 2018. "Small Firms’ Formalisation: The Stick Treatment," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(6), pages 983-1001, June.
    10. Martin Paul Jr. Tabe-Ojong & Emmanuel Nshakira-Rukundo & Bisrat Haile Gebrekidan, 2023. "COVID-19 and food insecurity in Africa: A review of the emerging empirical evidence," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 50(3), pages 853-878.
    11. Ahmed, Akhter U. & Hoddinott, John & Roy, Shalini & Sraboni, Esha, 2024. "Transfers, nutrition programming, and economic well-being: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    12. Stephen J. Anderson & Rajesh Chandy & Bilal Zia, 2018. "Pathways to Profits: The Impact of Marketing vs. Finance Skills on Business Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(12), pages 5559-5583, December.
    13. Rosas, Nina & Acevedo, Maria Cecilia & Zaldivar, Samantha, 2022. "Starting points matter: Cash plus training effects on youth entrepreneurship, skills, and resilience during an epidemic," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    14. Lucia Dalla Pellegrina & Giorgio Di Maio & Paolo Landoni & Emanuele Rusinà, 2021. "Money management and entrepreneurial training in microfinance: impact on beneficiaries and institutions," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(3), pages 1049-1085, October.
    15. Dwenger, Nadja & Kleven, Henrik & Rasul, Imran & Rincke, Johannes, 2014. "Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Motivations for Tax Compliance. Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment in Germany," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100389, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    16. Lea Cassar & Mira Fischer & Vanessa Valero, 2022. "Keep Calm and Carry On: Immediate-vs. Six-Month Effects of Mindfulness Training on Academic Performance," CESifo Working Paper Series 10099, CESifo.
    17. Marie Bjørneby & Annette Alstadsæter & Kjetil Telle, 2018. "Collusive tax evasion by employers and employees. Evidence from a randomized fi eld experiment in Norway," Discussion Papers 891, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    18. Brian McCaig & Nina Pavcnik, 2015. "Informal Employment in a Growing and Globalizing Low-Income Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 545-550, May.
    19. Poschke, Markus, 2013. "The Decision to Become an Entrepreneur and the Firm Size Distribution: A Unifying Framework for Policy Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 7757, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. María laura Alzúa & Guillermo Cruces & Carolina Lopez, 2016. "Long-Run Effects Of Youth Training Programs: Experimental Evidence From Argentina," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(4), pages 1839-1859, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    youth entrepreneurship; business grants; business development services; business training; COVID-19; pandemic relief;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • M20 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - General
    • M53 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Training

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:exe:wpaper:2110. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sebastian Kripfganz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deexeuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.