Increasing women's aspirations and take up of entrepreneurship using social networks

Last registered on April 19, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Increasing women's aspirations and take up of entrepreneurship using social networks
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010081
Initial registration date
October 04, 2022

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
October 05, 2022, 11:36 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
April 19, 2023, 10:41 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Paris School of Economics

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Oxford

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2021-09-01
End date
2023-12-01
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We study how a business training program affects the aspirations, goals, and entrepreneurship outcomes of women in rural Nepal and whether these outcomes can be improved by (a) training women in heterogeneous pairs from their social networks and (b) administering an additional module that focuses on the role of pooling network contacts to deal with business risk. We will first study the effect of being trained alone compared to being trained with a randomly chosen person in the network who is close/far in terms of network distance and similar/different in terms of their network centrality. Then, we will administer and study the effects of a treatment which additionally focuses on the usage of network contacts to share various risks that are a part of setting up a new business. This will allow us to disentangle risk-sharing with network peers as a potential mechanism that can boost aspirations and compare it with the effect of cooperation. The design will allow us to assess whether (a) social networks can be leveraged to improve business outcomes and (b) whether sharing network contacts to deal with risk is an important channel relative to cooperation or information sharing.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Khandelwal, Vatsal and JUNI SINGH. 2023. "Increasing women's aspirations and take up of entrepreneurship using social networks." AEA RCT Registry. April 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10081-2.2
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention will involve the delivery of a business training for women who have not opened up businesses. The training will focus on topics such as basic information about setting up a business, characteristics of good entrepreneurs, video of a role model, assessment of potential business opportunities and formation of business plans. Individuals will also be asked to form a business plan and set savings goals for themselves during the training. We will vary whether the training is delivered to individuals or randomly chosen pairs. Further, randomly chosen individuals will be delivered an additional module that focus on the importance of network contacts. Details about the design are provided in the experimental design section.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2022-09-26
Intervention End Date
2022-11-20

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Main outcomes will include (1) Performance in a business comprehension test, (2) aspirations for agricultural investments, business investments, savings, and income, (3) willingness to setup businesses and perceived ability to do so, (4) Take up of savings product, loans product, further advice services, and (5) self efficacy and household bargaining outcomes.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Villages will first be randomised into one of two groups: pure control and treatment. We will randomise individuals into one of four groups in the treated villages. (0) Control: No Training. (1) T1 : Individuals will attend the Training and set business plan and savings goals alone. (2) T2 : Individuals will attend the Training and set business plan and savings goals with a randomly matched person in their network. (4) T3: Individuals will attend the Training and set business plan and savings goals with a randomly matched person in their network. Additionally, they will receive an hour long "connections" module to highlight how they can help each other deal with financial uncertainty by sharing network contacts. This is aimed to increase the perceived probability of future risk-sharing interactions.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomisation coded on a computer.
Randomization Unit
We will implement a two stage randomisation design. Villages will be randomized into pure control and treated villages. Individuals in treated villages will be randomly allocated to a control group or one of the three treatment groups. Pairs of individuals will be stratified based on network distance and centrality.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
27 villages.
Sample size: planned number of observations
2000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
~400 individuals in 5 villages in the pure control group . ~400 individuals in each of the four arms in the remaining 22 villages.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Oxford
IRB Approval Date
2022-08-23
IRB Approval Number
ECONCIA21-22-49
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials