"Effective human capital formation through the medium of entrepreneurship education and training (EET) is of increasing concern for governments, as EET is growing rapidly across the world. Unfortunately, there is a lack of consistent evidence showing that EET helps to create more or better entrepreneurs. We undertake the first quantitative review of the literature and, in the context of human capital theory, find that there is indeed support for the value of EET. Recommendations to improve the quality of future work in the field are provided."

"We conduct a randomized experiment that generates exogenous variation in the access to foreign markets for rug producers in Egypt. Combined with detailed survey data, we causally identify the impact of exporting on firm performance. Treatment firms report 16-26% higher profits and exhibit large improvements in quality alongside reductions in output per hour relative to control firms. These findings do not simply reflect firms being offered higher margins to manufacture high-quality products that take longer to produce. Instead, we find evidence of learning-by-exporting whereby exporting improves technical efficiency.

First, treatment firms have higher productivity and quality after controlling for rug specifications. Second, when asked to produce an identical domestic rug using the same inputs and same capital equipment, treatment firms produce higher quality rugs despite no difference in production time. Third, treatment firms exhibit learning curves over time. Finally, we document knowledge transfers with quality increasing most along the specific dimensions that the knowledge pertained to."

"In this paper, we carry out a literature review of the studies investigating the factors that affect the performance and growth of clean technology start-up firms. The importance of clean-tech start-ups lies in their mission to protect the environment by facilitating the increased use of clean energy and environmentally friendly solutions. At the same time, the entrepreneurial nature of many of these firms enables introduction of radical innovations necessary for making breakthroughs in the industries of renewable energy and environmental technology that in turn are essential for the industry development. Given their significance, there are surprisingly few studies with the focus on the factors affecting the growth of clean-tech start-ups. Our search in leading management, entrepreneurship and energy journals has yielded a total of 13 articles, almost all of which focus on such external factors as policies. We argue that this gives us an incomplete picture of the factors enabling a clean-tech firm's development. As clean-tech firms are a subset of the population of new technology-based firms (NTBFs), we draw on the literature dealing with the factors that promote growth of NTBFs in order to build our framework for structuring the results. The analysis uncovers what future research areas can be pursued in order to gain a more balanced understanding of what enables the development of a clean-tech start-up. We suggest that in addition to the macro-studies of policies and regulations, future research needs to examine the individual and firm-specific factors, e.g. characteristics of the clean-tech entrepreneurs, teams, governance mechanisms and network structures. Furthermore, the existing focus on the environmental and innovative performance of clean-tech start-ups should be complemented by examining the alternative firm outcomes related to e.g. financial performance, social identity, alliance portfolio and internationalization."

"In this brief, we respond to questions from Acumen about what social enterprises think of measurement approaches that impact investors have created, specifically: Are entrepreneurs who have received impact investment funds using tools such as IRIS and B Impact Assessment? If they are, what factors are driving this adoption? If not, why not? And are they using other approaches instead?"

"This toolkit provides methodological guidance on assessing the current state of entrepreneurial ecosystems and offers a set of resources and tools that can be used by development practitioners. This toolkit does not aim to be exhaustive, but is intended to serve as a basis for other organizations to build upon. To develop this toolkit, ANDE conducted a comprehensive review of publicly available literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems and identified nine evaluative frameworks. We assessed these frameworks and synthesized key elements and indicators. ANDE encourages practitioners to use this toolkit as a resource guide that can be adapted and modified to fit the local and/sectoral context."

"In this brief, we respond to a question from VentureWell about intellectual property:

"In our work, we see that science and technology-based startups face different challenges and need different resources than other ventures. In your data, how do teams with intellectual property differ from those without? We are specifically interested in the roles of geography, education, team size and gender composition.""

"ANDE SA, in partnership with Innovate Durban, recently completed and published an in-depth snapshot of 124 programmes providing financial and non-financial support to the small and growing business ecosystem in Durban, South Africa and compiled their findings in this report. The insights in this snapshot are derived from primary data collection from entrepreneur support providers in Durban, as well as stakeholder feedback and external research cited throughout the snapshot."

"Gender discrimination in Latin American societies significantly reduces the effective participation of women in the development of new businesses; therefore, it limits their possibilities for professional advancement, as well as development opportunities for their families. In an even broader context, inequality prevents women from efficiently contributing to business development in countries of the region. The possibilities of undertaking new ventures are diminished by this reality. Most of the women surveyed for this study mentioned that they have suffered discrimination while doing business because of their gender. In fact, the results of this research paper show that women perceive greater inequality in opportunities to create companies and face more barriers in accessing resources, mainly financial ones, to develop their enterprises. These barriers have a negative effect on the outcomes and growth prospects of businesses created by women. Indeed, they prevent women, who represent more than 50% of the population, from efficiently contributing to the creation of wealth and jobs in Latin American countries."

"As part of a series of ecosystem maps, with the support of the Citi Foundation, our West Africa Regional Chapter released a snapshot providing insight into the Abuja entrepreneurial ecosystems. This snapshot was produced through a review of existing literature, a series of surveys and interviews, as well as stakeholder meetings."

"Entrepreneurship education has the potential to enable youth to gain skills and create their own jobs. In Tunisia, a curricular reform created an entrepreneurship track providing business training and coaching to help university students prepare a business plan. We rely on randomized assignment of the entrepreneurship track to identify impacts on students' labor market outcomes one year after graduation. The entrepreneurship track led to a small increase in self-employment, but overall employment rates remained unchanged. Although business skills improved, effects on personality and entrepreneurial traits were mixed. The program nevertheless increased graduates' aspirations toward the future."