Complementing Business Training with Access to Finance: Evidence from SMEs in Kenya

Arbeitspapier

This paper investigates the complementarity between business training and access to financial capital for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Kenya. All participants in a business training program are offered training. One-third of participants are offered loans immediately after training (Concurrent Loan group), one-third are offered loans six weeks after training (Delayed Loan group), and the remaining third are offered loans after another four weeks (Control group). While a long time lag may reduce knowledge retention and application by SMEs, concurrent access to loans and associated business spending may crowd out the entrepreneurs' attention from improving business practices. We find evidence for the latter in both intention-to-treat and treatment-on-the-treated estimates. While SMEs in both Control and Delayed Loan groups improve their business practices, SMEs in the Concurrent Loan group who take loans do not improve their practices at all. Moreover, entrepreneurs who take loans spend less time on their businesses and their business revenue falls. Our evidence is consistent with the entrepreneurs in our study using loans to substitute for their income.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 10612

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development ; Entrepreneurship ; Personnel Economics: Training
• Subject: business training ; access to finance

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Ashraf, Anik ; Lyons, Elizabeth
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2023

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/279363
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET