Informational Barriers to Market Access: Experimental Evidence from Liberian Firms / Jonas Hjort, Vinayak Iyer, Golvine de Rochambeau.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hjort, Jonas.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Iyer, Vinayak.

de Rochambeau, Golvine.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w27662.

NBER working paper series no. w27662

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.

Summary:

Evidence suggests that many firms in poor countries stagnate because they cannot access growth-conducive markets. We hypothesize that overlooked informational barriers distort market access. To investigate, we gave a random subset of medium-sized Liberian firms vouchers for a week-long program that exclusively teaches "sellership": how to sell to corporations, governments, and other large buyers. Firms that participate win three times as many formal contracts a year later. The impact is heterogeneous: informational sales barriers bind for about a quarter of firms. Three years post-training, these firms continue to win desirable contracts, are more likely to operate, and employ more workers.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2020.