Inside the Production Function: The Effect of Financial Contracts on Growing Firms' Technology Use. Evidence from a field experiment in Uganda.

我们研究了最常见的融资形式--债务--的关键方面如何可能阻碍年轻公司的扩张。创业需要学习和冒险，这意味着项目的投资回报可能一开始就很低，但随着时间的推移而增加(换句话说，“积压”)或不确定。此外，不可分割的启动成本往往需要大量投资。与此同时，许多发展中国家正规或半正规金融部门(如小额信贷)为微型企业家提供的标准债务合同规定了持续的还款来源和初始贷款规模的上限。贷款合同的这些特点与公司的生产技术相互作用，可能会扭曲投资，使投资转向涉及较少学习、较少不确定性和较小项目的投入；阻碍公司增长。为了阐明这些理论机制在多大程度上限制了小额贷款的有效性，我们计划与BRAC乌干达小企业贷款计划合作，研究信贷条件对创业公司投入使用、利润和偿还绩效的影响。因此，我们的项目有助于DFID-ESRC增长研究方案对低收入国家金融和增长的关注。中小型企业是乌干达经济的引擎，占私营部门的90%以上，自2008年以来，BRAC乌干达一直通过其小企业贷款方案向此类企业提供贷款。这些贷款从250万到1300万乌干达先令(630到3300英镑)不等，按月偿还，期限为12个月，年利率为25%。该研究项目将从2014年年中开始申请BRAC贷款的公司中选择具有代表性的1600家公司作为随机试验的一部分。为了调查来自正式或半正式来源的小额贷款中的标准合同条款对面临不可分成本和/或具有积压或不确定项目回报特征的公司是否具有限制性，我们将(随机)对不同类别的公司实施以下干预措施：(I)改变还款频率，以区分不确定的项目回报和不确定的项目回报的影响；(Ii)提供补贴，以方便购买不可分割的商品；以及(3)提供咨询服务，以缩短使用某些投入来缓解积压问题的学习过程。我们将在基线和贷款周期结束后(一年后)对这些公司进行调查，以衡量公司生产和利润的变化。此外，我们将使用详细和高频的公司数据来跟踪财务结构、公司的学习曲线或获得不可分割的商品的容易程度如何影响机器和劳动力的使用，以及这如何反过来影响利润和还款业绩。该项目将提供独特的证据，说明金融结构和技术使用相互作用造成的制约，补充了最近对获得资金的重视。

We examine how key aspects of the most common form of financing-debt-may inhibit young firms' expansion. Starting a business entails learning and risk taking, implying that project returns to investment can start low but increase over time (in other words, be "backloaded") or be uncertain. Also, indivisible start-up costs often require large investments. Meanwhile, standard debt contracts available for micro-entrepreneurs from the formal or semi-formal financial sectors of many developing countries (such as microfinance) stipulate a constant repayment stream and caps on the initial loan size. The interaction of such features of the loan contract and the firm's production technology, may distort investment toward inputs that involve less learning, less uncertainty, and smaller projects; hampering firm growth. To shed light on the extent to which these theoretical mechanisms limit the effectiveness of microloans, we plan to collaborate with BRAC Uganda's Small Enterprise Lending Program to study the effect of the credit terms on starting firms' input use, profits, and repayment performance. As such, our project contributes to the DFID-ESRC Growth Research Programme's focus on Finance and Growth in Low Income Countries.Small and medium-sized firms are the engines of the Ugandan economy, comprising over 90 % of the private sector and BRAC Uganda has been lending to such firms since 2008 through its Small Enterprise Lending Programme. The loans range from 2.5 million to 13 million Ugandan Shillings (630 to 3,300 GBP) and are repaid monthly with a maturity of 12 months at an annual interest rate of 25%. The research project will select, among firms applying for BRAC loans from mid-2014, a representative sample of 1600 firms to be part of a randomized experiment.In order to investigate whether standard contractual terms in microloans from formal or semi-formal sources are restrictive for firms that face indivisible costs and/or are characterized by backloaded or uncertain project returns, we will (randomly) implement the following interventions for different groups of firms by: (i) changing the repayment frequency to distinguish the effects of uncertain project returns from those of backloaded returns; (ii) offering subsidies to ease the purchase of indivisible goods; and by (iii) offering consultancy services to shorten the learning process about the use of certain inputs to alleviate problems of backloadedness. We will survey these firms at baseline and upon completion of the loan-cycle (1-year after) to measure the change in firms' production and profits. In addition, we will use detailed and high frequency firm data to trace how the financial structure, a firm's learning curve, or the ease with which an indivisible good is acquired affects the use of machines and labor and how this in turn impacts profits and repayment performance. The project will provide unique evidence on the constraints caused by the interaction of financial structure and technology use that complements the recent emphasis on access to finance.