Constraints to Entrepreneurship: Findings from Pilot Studies in Kenya and Uganda

This project lays the ground work for a research agenda to understand the constraints entrepreneurs and small firms face in East Africa

Abstract

This project lays the ground work for a bigger research agenda to understand the constraints entrepreneurs and small firms face in East Africa. 皇冠体育appre has been a lot of work in recent years on both large formal firms as well as on microenterprises in the developing world, but there is little work on small firms, in particular those highlighted in the ongoing discussion about the 鈥溾渕idding middle鈥�

Under this proposal, we aim to work with a technology firm to use Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology to conduct cell phone surveys of small firms (less than 5 employees, but both formal and informal), focusing on understanding the constraints they face. 皇冠体育app questions will cover some of the issues covered by the Doing Business reports of the World Bank as well as the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. However, these IVR surveys will be shorter in length (to keep attrition to a minimum) but with a much larger sample size. Another key advantage of the surveys we propose is that we plan to conduct these surveys at a reasonably high frequency (once a quarter) in each country, with the surveys being a panel, i.e. following the same firms over time. This will allow us to track firm dynamics in this sample in the short and medium term.

This work is part of the International Growth Centre鈥檚 鈥楾racking Constraints to Entrepreneurship in Africa鈥� project

Citation

Tavneet Suri, Louis Dorval (2019) Constraints to Entrepreneurship: Findings from Pilot Studies in Kenya and Uganda. IGC. Reference F-89406-UGA-1

Updates to this page

Published 21 May 2019