In principle, firms in developing countries benefit from the fact that advanced technologies and products have already been developed in industrialized countries and can simply be adopted, a process often referred to as industrial upgrading. But for many firms, this advantage has remained elusive.

This project studies a randomized, large-scale unconditional cash transfer program in Kenya, and find a meaningful increase in revenues for enterprises in areas experiencing a greater volume of cash transfers.

In Ethiopia, researchers randomly assigned mostly female jobseekers to receive an industrial job offer or an unconditional cash transfer, meant to spur self-employment. In the first year they found positive impacts of the cash transfers on occupational choice, income and health.

Business training is one of the most common support services offered by governments to small firms around the world.