Basic Entrepreneurship: A Means for Transforming the Economic Lives of the Poor?

基本创业精神：改变穷人经济生活的一种手段？

基本信息

批准号：
ES/L005689/1
负责人：
Robin Burgess
金额：
$ 41.72万
依托单位：
London School of Economics and Political Science
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2014
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2014 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FL005689%2F1
关键词：
Basic Entrepreneurship Means Transforming Economic

项目摘要

The world's poorest people typically lack both capital and skills. They tend to work as in occupations such as agricultural labor or subsistence cultivation which are often insecure and seasonal in nature and which do not require capital or skills. The non-poor, in contrast, tend to be engaged in secure wage employment or to operate their own businesses. Consequently, most anti-poverty programs attempt to target the poor to help them overcome either a lack of capital and or skills. Notable policy interventions along these lines include microfinance programs on the capital side, or vocational training and adult education on the skills side. Yet it is uncertain whether many of these programs are, in fact, able to transform the occupational choices of the poor, and thereby enable them to permanently exit poverty. Occupational change is central to development and growth, but it is the result of a complex set of interactions between individuals, markets and the state, and it is therefore difficult to credibly link occupational change to a lack of capital and skills.The proposed research examines a new set of interventions, pioneered by the world's largest NGO BRAC in Bangladesh, which simultaneously tackle the capital and skills constraint in an attempt to encourage occupational change amongst the world's poorest women. We use randomised control trials of this type of program in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India to look at whether providing capital and skills can encourage basic entrepreneurship. The issue at hand is whether one can create successful female entrepreneurs - who acquire skills and make use of productive capital - out of poor women who started out with neither. Key to this question is whether asset and skill transfers can induce the poor to alter their occupational choices and permanently exit poverty, as opposed to simply enabling them to increase their consumption in the short term. These questions are highly salient as the world is littered with examples of anti-poverty programs, which despite their best intentions, fail to have any appreciable impact on their intended beneficiaries. The proposed research thus speaks directly to the first overarching question posed in the ESRC-DFID Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation Research 2012-13 on finding effective means to allow the poorest to exit and stay out of poverty. It also addresses directly the crosscutting issues on structural inequalities (particularly as regards gender) and measurement and metrics (particularly as regards measuring empowerment and the social dynamics and general equilibrium effects induced by the program). The interventions we examine are fundamentally about empowering the poorest women within rural communities both socially and economically so that they can exit and stay out of poverty. The proposed research begins with an on-going large randomized evaluation of the ultra poor program which is being carried out jointly by the Principal Investigator, Professor Robin Burgess, and the world's largest NGO, BRAC (Bandiera et al, 2012). It then extends to two further large randomized evaluations inspired by this BRAC flagship program. A randomized evaluation of a combined livestock and microfinance program which is being implemented by BRAC in rural Uganda. And an evaluation of the Punjab Economic Opportunities Program, being implemented by the Government of Punjab in Pakistan, which attempts to enable poor, rural inhabitants to start small livestock businesses by providing them with livestock assets and complementary training. The research will thus tell us something about whether the basic entrepreneurship idea, which was pioneered by BRAC in Bangladesh, can be replicated elsewhere.

世界上最贫穷的人通常缺乏资本和技能。他们倾向于在农业劳动或生存养殖等职业中工作，这些职业通常是不安全和季节性的，并且不需要资本或技能。相比之下，不贫穷的人倾向于从事安全的工资就业或经营自己的业务。因此，大多数反贫困计划都试图针对穷人，以帮助他们克服缺乏资本和 / /或技能。沿这些线路的显着政策干预包括在首都方面的小额信贷计划，或在技能方面的职业培训和成人教育。然而，尚不确定这些计划中的许多实际上是否能够改变穷人的职业选择，从而使他们能够永久退出贫困。职业变化是发展和增长的核心，但这是个人，市场和国家之间一系列复杂的相互作用的结果，因此很难将职业变革与缺乏资本和技能上的职业变化联系起来。拟议的研究探讨了一套新的干预措施，研究了世界上最大的Ngo Brac Brac在孟加拉国的最大范围，这些研究中的妇女同时发生的范围却既占有一定的范围，都可以构成范围的变化。我们在孟加拉国，巴基斯坦和印度使用此类计划的随机控制试验，以研究提供资本和技能是否可以鼓励基本的企业家精神。手头的问题是，是否可以从两者都不愿意的贫困女性中创造成功的女性企业家（掌握技能并利用生产资本）。这个问题的关键是资产和技能转移是否可以诱使穷人改变其职业选择并永久退出贫困，而不是简单地使他们在短期内增加消费。这些问题非常重要，因为世界上充满了反贫困计划的例子，尽管他们的最佳意图对他们的预期受益人没有任何明显的影响。因此，拟议的研究直接讲述了ESRC-DFID联合基金在2012 - 13年度的第一个总体问题上提出的关于寻找有效手段的方法，以允许最贫穷的人退出并避免贫困。它还直接解决了关于结构性不平等（尤其是关于性别）和测量和指标的横切问题（尤其是关于测量授权以及该计划引起的社会动态和一般平衡效应）。我们研究的干预措施从根本上讲是在社会和经济上赋予农村社区中最贫穷的妇女的能力，以便她们可以退出并避免贫困。拟议的研究始于对超贫困计划进行的持续大规模随机评估，该计划由主要研究者罗宾·伯吉斯（Robin Burgess）教授和世界上最大的非政府组织BRAC共同进行（Bandiera等，2012）。然后，它扩展到了受此BRAC旗舰计划启发的另外两个大型随机评估。 BRAC在乌干达农村实施的合并牲畜和小额信贷计划的随机评估。旁遮普邦政府在巴基斯坦实施了对旁遮普邦经济机会计划的评估，该计划试图通过为贫穷的农村居民提供小型牲畜企业，通过为他们提供牲畜资产和补充培训，从而使贫穷的农村居民能够开始小型牲畜企业。因此，这项研究将告诉我们一些有关BRAC在孟加拉国开创的基本企业家思想是否可以在其他地方复制的基本企业家思想。