There is growing evidence that business training for micro-entrepreneurs can be effective. However, in-person training can be expensive and imposes costs on the target beneficiaries. This paper presents the results of a two-site randomized evaluation of a light-touch, mobile-phone-based business-training service for micro-entrepreneurs in India and the Philippines. The results show that the training had a statistically significant impact on the adoption of improved business practices, with an increase of 0.06 to 0.12 standard deviation points when considering a binary indicator of business practices. The study finds no evidence of impacts on business sales or profits, though the confidence intervals are wide enough to include meaningful effect sizes (positive or negative). These results suggest that mobile-phone-based training can be a cost-effective and scalable way to impart business skills to micro-entrepreneurs.

中文翻译：

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通话启发式：基于手机的业务管理建议的影响

越来越多的证据表明，针对微型企业家的商业培训是有效的。然而，现场培训可能会很昂贵，并且会给目标受益人带来成本。本文介绍了针对印度和菲律宾微型企业家的轻触式、基于移动电话的商业培训服务的两地随机评估结果。结果表明，培训对采用改进的业务实践产生了统计上的显着影响，在考虑业务实践的二元指标时，培训增加了 0.06 至 0.12 个标准差点。该研究没有发现对企业销售或利润有影响的证据，尽管置信区间足够宽，可以包含有意义的影响大小（正或负）。这些结果表明，基于手机的培训可以成为向微型企业家传授商业技能的一种经济有效且可扩展的方式。