Policy Evaluations of Microenterprise Business Support Services in Latin America: a Systematic Review

53 Pages Posted: 1 Dec 2022

See all articles by Laura Padilla Angulo

Laura Padilla Angulo

Universidad Loyola Andalucía

Jesús Miguel Lasarte López

Universidad Loyola Andalucía

Pedro Caldentey

Universidad Loyola Andalucía ; Instituto Desarrollo Universidad Loyola Andalucía

Date Written: November 9, 2022

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 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

JEL Classification: L26; M13; O1; O38; O54; Z38

Suggested Citation

Padilla Angulo, Laura and Lasarte López, Jesús Miguel and Caldentey, Pedro, Policy Evaluations of Microenterprise Business Support Services in Latin America: a Systematic Review (November 9, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4273101 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4273101

Laura Padilla Angulo (Contact Author)

Universidad Loyola Andalucía ( email )

Sevilla, Andalucía 41000
Spain

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.uloyola.es/

Jesús Miguel Lasarte López

Universidad Loyola Andalucía ( email )

c/ Escritor Castilla Aguayo
Córdoba, 14004
Spain

Pedro Caldentey

Universidad Loyola Andalucía ( email )

c/ Escritor Castilla Aguayo
Córdoba, 14004
Spain

HOME PAGE: http://www.uloyola.es

Instituto Desarrollo Universidad Loyola Andalucía ( email )

c/ Escritor Castilla Aguayo
Córdoba, 14004
Spain

HOME PAGE: http://www.uloyola.es

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
34
Abstract Views
273
PlumX Metrics