Identifying and teaching high-growth entrepreneurship: Experimental evidence from entrepreneurship academies for university students in Uganda

Last registered on January 01, 2022
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Identifying and teaching high-growth entrepreneurship: Experimental evidence from entrepreneurship academies for university students in Uganda
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004502
Initial registration date
August 26, 2019

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 29, 2019, 8:42 AM EDT

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

Last updated
January 01, 2022, 2:22 AM EST

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Kristina Czura
Affiliation
University of Groningen
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Vojtech Bartos
PI Affiliation
LMU Munich
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PI Name
Michael Kaiser
PI Affiliation
LMU Munich
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PI Name
Brendan Shanks
PI Affiliation
LMU Munich
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PI Name
Timm Opitz
PI Affiliation
Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2019-08-28
End date
2023-12-31
Keywords
Education, Firms & Productivity, Labor
Additional Keywords
entrepreneurship training, high-potential entreprises
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Businesses in low-income countries tend to be small and typically have little prospects for growth. Our study centers around an entrepreneurship training for university students implemented by StartHub Africa that sets out to foster the creation of high-potential enterprises. We will study selection into participation in the entrepreneurship training, in particular the role of preferences, beliefs, personality traits, and cognitive ability, and the short- and medium-term impacts of the entrepreneurship training on business creation, performance, and jobs creation, as well as labor market outcomes. Our identification strategy relies on randomized marketing message and data collection from representative populations of potential applicants to address selection question, and an oversubscription design and a random assignment of applicants to participate in the entrepreneurship training for the main evaluation of the entrepreneurship training.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bartos, Vojtech et al. 2022. "Identifying and teaching high-growth entrepreneurship: Experimental evidence from entrepreneurship academies for university students in Uganda." AEA RCT Registry. January 01. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4502-2.1
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We study a novel entrepreneurship training program offered by StartHub Africa (SHA) that teaches business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset to university students in Uganda. The extra-curricular program is aligned with the semester and consists of 3-hour weekly sessions over 9 weeks at several leading Ugandan universities. In the academy, individuals individually or in teams develop a business plan and a business prototype. SHA runs the academies twice per year (spring and fall).
Intervention Start Date
2019-09-15
Intervention End Date
2022-07-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
• Business creation
• Business success
• Capital and labor input
• Economic self-sufficiency

• Submitted application
• Cognitive ability
• Over-confidence
• Entrepreneurial self-assessment
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Details in pre-analysis plan, including how families of variables are generated.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
• Business practices
• Professionalization
• Owner’s non-cognitive traits
• Entrepreneurial mindset
• Preferences
• Networks
• Marketing
• Innovation
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Details in pre-analysis plan, including how families of variables are generated.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Our evaluation of the entrepreneurship academy relies on an oversubscription design. Of all applicants we randomly select who will participate (treatment group) and who will not (control group).

We also study selection into the entrepreneurship academy by randomly exposing interested students to different marketing message on the information day. We collect data at different stages of the selection process: when showing interest in the training, when applying to the training, and when participating in the training. We also collect data from a sample of university students participating in large classes in which the training was advertised and who did not show interest in participating in the training. How do they differ from those who have shown interest?
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by computer
Randomization Unit
Individuals
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
No cluster, individual level randomization.
Sample size: planned number of observations
1600 individuals for evaluation + 800 for comparison group
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
• Treatment group: 800 (40 per academy, for 10 universities with 2 academies each)
• Control group: 800 (40 per academy, for 10 universities with 2 academies each)
• Comparison group: 800
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Details in pre-analysis plan.
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Ethics Commission, Department of Economics, University of Munich
IRB Approval Date
2019-03-14
IRB Approval Number
Project 2018-07
Analysis Plan

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