This Campbell systematic review assesses the effects of business support services in low‐ and middle‐income countries on firm performance and economic development. The review summarizes findings from 40 studies. Included studies examine interventions targeted at SMEs (two to 250 employees) involving tax simplification, exports and access to external markets; support for innovation policies; support to local production systems; training and technical assistance, and SME financing and credit guarantee programmes. Findings from 40 studies are summarised in the review. These studies present evidence from 18 low‐ and middle‐income countries, with 26 studies analysing programmes in Latin America, six from Asia and five from Africa. On average, business support to SMEs improves their performance, their ability to create jobs, their labour productivity and their ability to invest. The effects on innovation are unclear. Matching grants, technical assistance and tax simplification programmes improve firms' performance and job creation; with technical assistance also improving labour productivity. Export promotion and innovation programmes positively affect exports and innovation, but there is no evidence that they improve performance or job creation. However, the effects of the programmes studied are not very large. Most studies do not include the required data to assess if the programmes are cost effective. Plain language summary BUSINESS SUPPORT SERVICES TO SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES SEEM TO IMPROVE FIRM PERFORMANCEThe Campbell review in briefSupport to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can improve their revenue and profits, their ability to create jobs, labour productivity and their ability to invest. But these effects are not large, and the cost effectiveness of the interventions not known. The effects on innovation are unclear.What is this review about?Large amounts of funding are going towards programmes to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in low‐ and middle‐income countries in order to increase revenue and profits, generate employment, and, so, create economic growth and reduce poverty.The Campbell review summarizes evidence of the impact of these programmes on measures of SME performance including revenues, profits, and productivity, as well as the firms' ability to generate employment and their labour productivity.What are the main findings of this review?What studies are included?Included studies examine interventions targeted at SMEs (two to 250 employees) involving tax simplification, exports and access to external markets; support for innovation policies; support to local production systems; training and technical assistance, and SME financing and credit guarantee programmes.Findings from 40 studies are summarised in the review. These studies present evidence from 18 low‐ and middle‐income countries, with 26 studies analysing programmes in Latin America, six from Asia and five from Africa.Do business support services work?On average, business support to SMEs improves their performance, their abi...

The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) is an international grant-making NGO promoting evidence-informed development policies and programmes. We are the global leader in funding, producing and synthesising high-quality evidence of what works, for whom, why and at what cost. We believe that better and policy-relevant evidence will make development more effective and improve people's lives. 3ie systematic reviews 3ie systematic reviews appraise and synthesise the available high-quality evidence on the effectiveness of social and economic development interventions in low-and middle-income countries. These reviews follow scientifically recognised review methods, and are peerreviewed and quality assured according to internationally accepted standards. 3ie is providing leadership in demonstrating rigorous and innovative review methodologies, such as using theory-based approaches suited to inform policy and programming in the dynamic contexts and challenges of low-and middle-income countries. About this reviewBusiness support for small and medium enterprises in low-and middle-income countries: a systematic review, was submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of grant SR5.1180 issued under Systematic Review Window 5. This review is available on the 3ie website. 3ie is publishing this report as received from the authors; it has been formatted to 3ie style. This review has also been published in the Campbell Collaboration Library and is available here.All content is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not represent the opinions of 3ie, its donors or its board of commissioners. Any errors are also the sole responsibility of the authors. Comments or queries should be directed to the corresponding author, Caio Piza, ctpiza@worldbank.org Plain language summaryMotivation: Large amounts of funding are going towards programmes to support small businesses (Small and Medium Enterprises, or SMEs) in low-and middle-income countries, based on the assumption that those businesses will make profits and generate employment, and thus create economic growth and reduce poverty. However, it is not clear how much evidence exists to show whether those results are occurring and for which groups. This is the first systematic review of the evidence regarding these programmes.Approach: The review looks at measures of SME performance including revenues, profits, and productivity, as well as the firms' ability to generate employment and their labour productivity. We conducted a systematic review of the available quantitative evidence, and also incorporated qualitative studies to better understand the mechanisms at work. We searched for published and unpublished literature, using inclusion criteria according to the study protocol. We critically appraised the studies included, and conducted statistical metaanalysis to gain an overview of the findings and meta-regression to understand heterogeneity.Results: Our study finds that business' support to SMEs improves their performance, their ability to create jobs, ...

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ResumoA educação profissional é um tema de extrema relevância na atualidade brasileira e, cada vez mais, surgem instituições públicas e particulares visando qualificar o indivíduo para o mercado de trabalho. No entanto, pouco se sabe sobre quem são os indivíduos que cursaram qualificação hoje no Brasil e se há um diferencial de rendimento favorável aos mesmos. Para que se conheçam os perfis, é usado o Suplemento da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílio (PNAD) de 2007. Através de análises descritivas e de estimação de modelos econométricos, concluiu-se que os inativos são os que mais procuram este tipo de qualificação. Com relação aos ocupados, observa-se que cursar Educação Profissional acresce o rendimento no mercado de trabalho.Palavras-chave: Qualificação profissional; Mercado de trabalho; Rendimento. Abstract Profiles of the individuals seeking professional qualification in BrazilProfessional qualification is a topic of utmost importance in Brazil and there are an increasing number of public and private institutions in order to qualify the individual for the job market. However, we do not know a lot about the individuals who take part in this type of training in Brazil or if there is a wage gap which favors those who do. The National Household Sample (PNAD) from 2007 is used to gain information on the profiles. Through descriptive analysis and estimation of econometric models, it was concluded that this type of qualification is mostly sought after by the unemployed. Regarding those in work, it is observed that professional qualification leads to an increase in income in the labor market.Keywords: Professional qualification; Labor market; Wage. JEL J01; J08; J24. IntroduçãoA qualificação profissional, ou formação inicial e continuada, é direcionada para o mercado de trabalho e não eleva o nível de escolaridade do indivíduo. Além disso, o curso pode ser oferecido por diversas instituições (de igrejas a sindicatos) com duração e conteúdo variáveis. Já o curso técnico de nível médio fornece ao indivíduo o diploma de técnico junta ou posteriormente à * Trabalho recebido em 13 de agosto de 2010 e aprovado em 12 de março de 2012.

The growing political polarization and the increasing use of social media have been linked to straining social ties worldwide. The 2016 presidential elections in the United States reflected this trend with reports of fear and anxiety among voters. We examine how election results can be linked to episodes of anxiety through the use of alcohol as self‐medication. We analyze a daily dataset of household purchases of alcohol in the weeks following presidential elections. We find that, within 30 days from Election Day, a 10 percentage point increase in support for the losing candidate increases alcohol expenditure by 1.1%. The effect is driven by counties with a higher share of supporters of the losing candidate and is robust to controlling more flexibly for omitted variables related to alcohol consumption. The increase in alcohol consumption is present in the 2016 elections and absent in the previous three presidential elections.

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Wastewater monitoring has provided health officials with early warnings for new COVID-19 outbreaks, but to date, no approach has been validated to distinguish signal (sustained surges) from noise (background variability) in wastewater data to alert officials to the need for heightened public health response. We analyzed 62 wk of data from 19 sites participating in the North Carolina Wastewater Monitoring Network to characterize wastewater metrics around the Delta and Omicron surges. We found that wastewater data identified outbreaks 4 to 5 d before case data (reported on the earlier of the symptom start date or test collection date), on average. At most sites, correlations between wastewater and case data were similar regardless of how wastewater concentrations were normalized and whether calculated with county-level or sewershed-level cases, suggesting that officials may not need to geospatially align case data with sewershed boundaries to gain insights into disease transmission. Although wastewater trend lines captured clear differences in the Delta versus Omicron surge trajectories, no single wastewater metric (detectability, percent change, or flow-population normalized viral concentrations) reliably signaled when these surges started. After iteratively examining different combinations of these three metrics, we developed the Covid-SURGE (Signaling Unprecedented Rises in Groupwide Exposure) algorithm, which identifies unprecedented signals in the wastewater data. With a true positive rate of 82%, a false positive rate of 7%, and strong performance during both surges and in small and large sites, our algorithm provides public health officials with an automated way to flag community-level COVID-19 surges in real time.

The earlier a woman learns about her pregnancy status, the sooner she can make decisions about her own and infant's health. This paper examines how women learn about their pregnancy status and measures how access to pregnancy tests affects earlier pregnancy knowledge. Using  years of individuallevel monthly panel data in Nepal, we find that, on average, women learn they are pregnant in their .th month of pregnancy. Living approximately a mile further from a clinic offering pregnancy tests increases the time a woman knows she is pregnant by one week ( percent increase) and decreases the likelihood of knowing in the first trimester by . percentage points ( percent decrease). Women with prior pregnancies experience the most substantial effects of distance within the first two trimesters, while, for women experiencing their first pregnancy, distance does not affect knowledge. These results suggest that, while access to clinics can increase pregnancy awareness for women who recognize pregnancy symptoms, other complementary policies are needed to increase pregnancy awareness of women in their first pregnancy.  How Do Women Learn They Are Pregnant?1 A vast literature describes how access to pregnancy tests can increase the uptake of services. In our setting, Andersen et al. (2013) show that female community health volunteers in Nepal can use the result of UPTs to refer women to the appropriate services (antenatal care/abortion or contraceptive methods).