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The Catch-22 of External Validity in the Context of Constraints to Firm Growth

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title The Catch-22 of External Validity in the Context of Constraints to Firm Growth
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/MNW5LP
 
Creator Fischer, Greg
Karlan, Dean
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description We document the presence of multiple and varied constraints to small and medium firm growth. This presents both a practical problem for business training programs and a challenge to academic economists trying to identify mechanisms though which these programs may affect outcomes. External validity needs theory. This pushes researchers to narrowly defined and highly selected sample frames, which limits the potential for clear, generalizable policy prescriptions. Ultimately, larger samples, multi-arm evaluations, process documentation, and narrowly-focused, theory-supported empirical work are all needed, but the complexity of the problem limits what we learn from any single study.
 
Subject Social Sciences
 
Contributor Parrado, Andres
 
Type Sample survey data