Financial contracts, small firm growth, and job creation: experimental evidence from Uganda

我们研究了最常见的融资形式——债务——的关键方面如何抑制年轻公司的扩张。创业需要学习和承担风险，这意味着项目的投资回报可能在开始时很低，但随着时间的推移会增加（换句话说，是“反向加载”），或者是不确定的。此外，不可分割的启动成本往往需要大量投资。同时，许多发展中国家正规或半正规金融部门的微型企业家可获得的标准债务合同（如小额信贷）规定了固定的还款流和初始贷款数额的上限。贷款合同的这些特征与企业生产技术的相互作用，可能会扭曲投资，使其倾向于涉及较少学习、较少不确定性和较小项目的投入；阻碍公司成长。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乌干达小企业贷款项目合作，研究信贷条款对初创企业投入使用、利润和还款绩效的影响。因此，我们的项目有助于DFID-ESRC增长研究计划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这些企业提供贷款。贷款范围从250万到1300万乌干达先令（630到3300英镑）不等，每月偿还，期限为12个月，年利率为25%。该研究项目将从2014年中期开始，从申请BRAC贷款的公司中选择1600家具有代表性的公司作为随机实验的一部分。为了调查来自正式或半正式来源的小额贷款的标准合同条款是否对面临不可分割成本和/或以备用或不确定项目回报为特征的公司具有限制性，我们将（随机）对不同类型的公司实施以下干预措施：(i)改变还款频率，以区分不确定项目回报和备用回报的影响；（二）提供补贴，方便购买不可分割的商品；（iii）提供顾问服务，缩短学习使用某些输入资料的过程，以纾缓超载问题。我们将在基准线、贷款周期结束后（1年后）、中线（基准线后2年）和终点（基准线后4-5年）对这些企业进行调查，以衡量企业生产和利润的变化。此外，我们将使用详细和高频的企业数据来追踪财务结构、企业的学习曲线或获得不可分割商品的难易程度如何影响机器和劳动力的使用，以及这反过来如何影响利润和偿还绩效。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，补充最近对融资渠道的重视。

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, upon completion of the loan-cycle (1-year after), at midline (2 years after baseline), and at endline (4-5 years after baseline) to measure the changes 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.