Policy evaluations of microenterprise business support services in Latin America: A systematic review

Laura Padilla-Angulo, Jesús Miguel Lasarte-López and Pedro Caldentey Del Pozo

Evaluation and Program Planning, 2023, vol. 97, issue C

Abstract: Microenterprises represent 88.4 % of Latin American enterprises, and many countries in the region have developed microenterprise promotion policies in recent years; however, rigorous evaluation remains a pending issue. To shed light on the research done on this topic over the last 20 years and propose a roadmap for the policy evaluation of microenterprise business support services and the development of microenterprise indicators, this work conducts a systematic review, following the PRISMA guidelines, of peer-reviewed journal articles examining the impact of business support services on microenterprise performance in low- and middle-income Latin American countries. We identified 679 studies, and 17 studies met the inclusion criteria. We found that the literature is surprisingly scarce; most studies focus on credits and impacts on financial performance and concentrate on Mexico; and only three articles involve randomised controlled trials. Our results have important implications for policymakers and future research.

Keywords: Business support services; Systematic review; Microenterprises; Latin America; Policy evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:epplan:v:97:y:2023:i:c:s0149718922001665

DOI: 10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2022.102212

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