"This whitepaper presents Endeavor's "house view" on proactive ideas and measures that the government, policymakers and business community, who understand the importance of protecting the essential high-growth innovation sector of the Nigerian economy, should consider as we work collectively to minimise the impact of the coronavirus and protect Nigeria's economic future."

"A broad literature has found that the misallocation of entrepreneurial talent has strong effects on productivity. To investigate whether the government can improve entrepreneurial activity, we analyze a policy aimed at promoting innovative startups through the provision of funding and technical assistance to potential entrepreneurs in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We conduct a survey and use regression discontinuity methods to identify the effects of the policy. We find significant effects on enterprise creation and survival as well as on employment. Overall, we show that small-scale public policy can help entrepreneurs overcome a wide variety of barriers to firm entry and improve the allocation of their entrepreneurial talent."

"Given the mixed evidence for the impact of various publicly funded initiatives that aim to foster entrepreneurial activity, this paper empirically examines the efficacy of publicly funded business advisory services in relation to entrepreneurial outcomes. Based on a sample of 228 early-stage firms, of which 101 used business advisory services focused on helping companies secure 1st rounds of financing and start generating revenues, we examine the firm-level impact such services can have on sales growth, innovation, finance and alliances. We find services are positively associated with firms' sales growth, patents, finance and alliances. We assess statistical and economic significance, and assess robustness to controls for the non-randomness of the firm's using business advisory service program, as well as endogeneity of advisors' hours spent with firms. Other robustness checks are also included. We find significant robustness of hours spent on sales and finance, but sensitivity of the effect of hours on patents and alliances after controlling for endogeneity."

"This piece distills critical lessons that cut across geographies and sectors and provides vital information for enterprises and funders trying to unlock impact at scale. Pivoting to Impact builds on in-depth Case Studies that share the scaling journeys of three organizations that have completed their IIA-funded work. Each organization has a unique story to tell about its strategies, pivots, successes, and failures on the road to scale."

"We study the information-gathering role of a startup accelerator and consider the accelerator's incentives to choose a portfolio size and disclose information about participating ventures. We show that in a rational-expectations equilibrium, the resultant portfolio size is smaller than the first-best (efficient) level, consistent with some real-world observations. We further show that when some signals are uninformative and the portfolio consists of mostly high-quality ventures, the accelerator may choose to disclose only positive signals (and conceal negative signals) about its portfolio firms - a strategy we refer to as partial disclosure. Moreover, coupled with pursuing this strategy of partial disclosure, we demonstrate that the accelerator may possess incentives to exit its portfolio firms early."

"The authors set out to document, understand and disseminate good practices in policies for social enterprises, and ultimately to contribute to the development of the sector in Latin America and globally. The book introduces a model of how to position the issue on the public agenda in a way that responds to the most urgent social needs of the country and the sector, building on existing local policies as well as those from other countries, and involving stakeholders in permanent dialogue. The Road to Travel, aimed at public policymakers and key sector players, includes 34 cases of best practices in public policy and a strategy to move faster to address our most intractable problems through a new economy."

"The Poverty Probability Index (PPI) is a comprehensive, contextually-sensitive poverty measurement tool to characterize households' asset ownership and probability of living below the poverty line. The PPI questionnaires are available for individual countries and are continuously updated."

"The Poverty Stoplight is a poverty measurement tool that seeks to activate the potential of families and communities to lift themselves out of poverty. Using a technology platform, it offers a self-assessment survey and intervention model that enables people to develop practical solutions to overcome their specific needs."

"This note provides a popular overview of why and how GIF forecasts and measures impact. GIF’s unique Practical Impact methodology is central to the way GIF pursues its mission. We hope this introduction to Practical Impact will help donors, investees, and the public to better understand how we work. We hope also that other development financiers and impact investors may be interested in learning how GIF has addressed the challenge of investing for impact in innovations."

"Most impact investors see their primary goal as finding and investing in enterprises that yield strong financial and social returns-a goal we share and support. But we worry this singular focus may miss the forest for the trees. In this discussion paper, we argue for a shift in focus-toward the goal of scaling entire industry sectors, in addition to individual firms."