Can interactive online training make high school students more entrepreneurial? Experimental evidence from Rwanda in a new GLO Discussion Paper by GLO Fellows Todd Pugatch & Jose Tessada and colleagues.

A new GLO Discussion Paper estimates sizeable effects of a 6-week training during the COVID-19 pandemic on entrepreneurial activity.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 1041, 2022

Can interactive online training make high school students more entrepreneurial? Experimental evidence from Rwanda  Download PDF
by Lafortune, Jeanne & Pugatch, Todd & Tessada, José & Ubfal, Diego

GLO Fellows Todd Pugatch and Jose Tessada

Todd Pugatch

Author Abstract: We study the short-run effects of a gamified online entrepreneurship training offered to high school students in Rwanda during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a randomized controlled trial, we estimate sizeable effects of the 6-week training on entrepreneurial activity. One month after the training, participants in schools offered the training were much more likely to own a business than participants in control schools. The training induced students to participate more actively in their school’s business club, to undertake more business-oriented actions, to improve their business practices, and to interact more with other youth and family members about their business ideas. We hypothesize that the training might have motivated treated students to sustain their business activities during the COVID-19 crisis.

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GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers)Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

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