Publications
Publications
- August 2024
- World Bank Economic Review
Heuristics on Call: The Impact of Mobile-Phone-Based Business-Management Advice
By: Shawn Cole, Mukta Joshi and Antoinette Schoar
Abstract
There is growing evidence that business training for micro-entrepreneurs can be effective. However, in-person training can be expensive and imposes costs on the target beneficiaries. This paper presents the results of a two-site randomized evaluation of a light-touch, mobile-phone-based business-training service for micro-entrepreneurs in India and the Philippines. The results show that the training had a statistically significant impact on the adoption of improved business practices, with an increase of 0.06 to 0.12 standard deviation points when considering a binary indicator of business practices. The study finds no evidence of impacts on business sales or profits, though the confidence intervals are wide enough to include meaningful effect sizes (positive or negative). These results suggest that mobile-phone-based training can be a cost-effective and scalable way to impart business skills to micro-entrepreneurs.
Keywords
Citation
Cole, Shawn, Mukta Joshi, and Antoinette Schoar. "Heuristics on Call: The Impact of Mobile-Phone-Based Business-Management Advice." World Bank Economic Review 38, no. 3 (August 2024): 580–597.