Evaluating the Effects of Entrepreneurship Edutainment in Egypt

Last registered on May 22, 2017

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Evaluating the Effects of Entrepreneurship Edutainment in Egypt
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0000370
Initial registration date
August 27, 2014

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
August 27, 2014, 5:11 PM EDT

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

Last updated
May 22, 2017, 12:42 PM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Nantes Université

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
GENES-CREST
PI Affiliation
UC Louvain
PI Affiliation
American University of Cairo
PI Affiliation
ILO

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2013-11-01
End date
2016-08-01
Secondary IDs
Abstract
In Egypt, inequalities of opportunity in the labour market are critically high and are believed to be one of the causes for the current unrest in the country. In 2010, while the overall unemployment rate was 9%, it had reached 16.6% and 55.8% respectively for men and women between 20 and 24 (ILO, statistics). Both theoretical and anecdotal evidence suggest that fostering youth entrepreneurship may be an adequate policy to tackle these issues. In particular, while 53.6% of young Egyptians express a preference for having their own business over a salaried job, only 1.2% are self-employed due to credit constraints and a lack of business information (Population Council, 2009). However there is still little robust evidence showing a causal impact of programs promoting entrepreneurship on labour market indicators or indicating the most effective mode of delivery for such trainings.

As part of the Taqeem initiative (a project by ILO’s Youth Employment Network and Silatech), we propose to evaluate the effects of an innovative youth entrepreneurship reality TV show in Egypt, El Mashrou3 by Bamyan Media. El Mashrou3 uses an entertaining approach to teach an expected audience of 8-10 million Egyptians entrepreneurial skills and good business practices, and to introduce them to local partners delivering entrepreneurship training, mentorship, finance and technology services etc. In addition to the show, support activities will be carried out to create a bridge between the reality show and the real world: a website will be created so that viewers may find online courses, educational videos, mentoring services etc., and viewing parties as well as networking events will also be organized.

We will run a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the combined effects of our interventions. As the TV show is being broadcasted nationally on a satellite channel and the website is available to all, we propose to use an encouragement design. Respondents will be randomly allocated to different groups differing only by the amount of encouragements they will receive to watch the show and participate in the support activities. Paying close attention to heterogeneous and personal network effects, we will evaluate the impact of the interventions on business practices, employment status, skills and attitudes towards business.

In doing so, we hope not only to better our understanding of the impact of such “edutainment” programs and entrepreneurship trainings but also to inform the design of future public policies, in particular those fighting unemployment and precariousness.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Barsoum, Ghada et al. 2017. "Evaluating the Effects of Entrepreneurship Edutainment in Egypt." AEA RCT Registry. May 22. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.370-3.0
Former Citation
Barsoum, Ghada et al. 2017. "Evaluating the Effects of Entrepreneurship Edutainment in Egypt." AEA RCT Registry. May 22. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/370/history/17880
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2013-12-21
Intervention End Date
2014-03-22

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
a) attitudes towards business,
b) soft and hard skills,
c) the various steps taken to start a business (asking for advice, funding etc. from both partner and non-partner organizations),
d) employment status,
e) whether individuals have started their own business (type of activity, investment made, number of employees, profits etc.) and
f) business practices for those already owning a business.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will carry out a randomized controlled trial to assess the combined impacts of both the TV show and the support activities. As the show will be broadcasted nation-wide on a channel available to all, it is impossible to restrict the audience to carry out the impact evaluation. The same applies to the TV show website. That is why we will be running a randomized controlled trial using an encouragement design to identify the effect of the interventions. Respondents will be randomly allocated to different groups differing only by the amount of encouragements they will receive to watch the show and participate in the support activities.
Experimental Design Details
A first batch of respondents will be selected using the random digit dialling method (generating telephone numbers at random) to guarantee the representativeness of our sample and the external validity of our results (5,974 batch 1 respondents). A second batch of respondents will be constituted by asking batch 1 respondents for the contact details of three of their friends (3,353 batch 2 respondents).

The randomization will happen at the individual level and will be stratified by batch, number of friends in the cluster and gender, de facto splitting the sample into the following three groups of friends:
• Group1: No encouragements will be given whatsoever to anyone;
• Group2: Some respondents (batch1 and/or batch2) will get the encouragements but not all;
• Group3: Everyone will get the encouragements.
Randomization Method
The randomization will be done using a computer.
Randomization Unit
The randomization will happen at the individual level.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
5,974
Sample size: planned number of observations
9,327
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Around half of the individuals gets the encouragements, the other half does not.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
J-PAL Europe
IRB Approval Date
2013-11-22
IRB Approval Number
CE/2013-008

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