Innovations in flexible, personalized microcredits and experimentation-based training modules

In collaboration with Chile’s largest microfinance institution, we will experimentally evaluate the impact of two interventions aimed to increase the livelihoods of small business owners in Chile. The first is a flexible, personalized credit product that allows borrowers to match the timing of their cash flows to their repayment obligations. The second is a novel business training based on the entrepreneurship curriculum at Harvard Business School, which emphasizes “lean testing” as an approach to making business decisions. Our experiment is complemented by a novel business plan training, which will allow us to collect granular data on investment choices as well as entrepreneurs’ perceived risk and the time horizon of revenues corresponding to each investment.