Western Balkans Investment Readiness Surveys 2015-2018 - Croatia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia

Abstract
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Innovative firms with good ideas may still struggle to fine-tune them to the stage where they can attract outside funding. We conduct a five-country randomized experiment that tests the impact of an investment readiness program. Firms then pitched their ideas to independent judges. The program resulted in a 0.3 standard deviation increase in the investment readiness score. Two years later, the average impacts on firm investment outcomes are positive, but small in magnitude, and not statistically significant. Larger and statistically significant impacts on receiving outside funding occur for smaller firms, and for firms with lower likelihoods of otherwise being funded.

Geographic coverage
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Firms which entered the investment readiness program were drawn from Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia

Universe
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Firms which applied to the investment readiness program

Kind of data
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Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure
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To participate in the program, a firm had to be legally registered in at least one of the five countries: Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro or Serbia. The firm had to be a micro, small, or medium-enterprise, defined as having fewer than 250 employees, and an annual turnover below 50 million euros. It had to be innovative, meaning that “it will in the foreseeable future develop products, services, or processes which are new or substantially improved compared to the state of the art in its industry, and which carry a risk of technological or industrial failure”, and could not be on a sanctions list or operating in a set of negative activities (e.g. gambling or alcohol production).
Applicants had to apply online, with the data from this application form providing the baseline data for this study. More than 1,200 applications were started online, and a total of 584 full applications were received. These were screened for eligibility, resulting in 346 firms being selected as eligible for the program.

Mode of data collection
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Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]

Research instrument
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The questionnaires for the Western Balkans Investment Readiness Surveys were organized as follows:
- Application Form : Pioneers of the Balkans
- Pioneers of the Balkans - Follow-up survey (spring 2016)
- World Bank "Pioneers of the Balkans" - Follow-up Survey 2017

Response rate
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Our main outcomes come from two rounds of follow-up surveys, in which we attempted to interview all firms, not only those who had participated in the pitch competition. The first round, intended to measure short-term effects, was taken between April and August 2016, corresponding to a period of approximately six months after the end of the investment readiness program and judging. The overall survey response rate was 79.2 percent, and does not differ significantly between treatment (79.9%) and control (78.5%). In addition, we collected information on operating status, number of employees, and whether negotiations for an outside investment had occurred for a further 12 percent of firms , resulting in basic data being available for 92.2 percent of firms.
The second follow-up survey took place between August 2017 and March 2018, corresponding to an average of two years since the intervention. The overall survey response rate for this second follow-up was 85.0 percent, and again does not differ significantly between treatment (86.2%) and control (83.7%), with data on firm operating status and receipt of equity available for 94.5% of firms.

摘要
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具备创新思维的企业即便拥有优质想法，也可能在将其精炼至能够吸引外部投资阶段时面临挑战。本研究通过一项涵盖五个国家的随机实验，检验了投资准备计划的影响。企业随后向独立评委展示其创新理念。该计划使得投资准备评分提高了0.3个标准差。两年后，对企业投资结果的影响平均而言虽为正值，但影响幅度较小，且不具有统计学意义。对于规模较小且原本获得资金可能性较低的企业，获得外部资金的影响则更大，且具有统计学意义。
地理覆盖范围
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参与投资准备计划的企业来自克罗地亚、科索沃、马其顿、黑山和塞尔维亚。
总体
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申请投资准备计划的企业
数据类型
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样本调查数据 [ssd]
抽样程序
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为了参与该计划，企业必须在克罗地亚、科索沃、马其顿、黑山或塞尔维亚至少一个国家合法注册。企业必须是微型、小型或中型企业，定义为拥有少于250名员工，年营业额低于5000万欧元。企业必须具有创新性，即“在未来可预见的时期内，将开发出与行业内现有技术水平相比新颖或显著改进的产品、服务或流程，并承担技术或工业失败的风险”，且不能出现在制裁名单上或从事负面活动（例如赌博或酒精生产）。申请人必须在线提交申请，该申请表中的数据为本研究的基础数据。共有超过1200份在线申请开始，共收到584份完整的申请。这些申请经过资格审核，最终有346家企业被选为符合该计划资格。
数据收集方式
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计算机辅助个人访谈 [capi]
研究工具
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西方巴尔干地区投资准备调查问卷的编制如下：
- 申请表：巴尔干先锋
- 巴尔干先锋 - 春季2016年后续调查
- 世界银行“巴尔干先锋” - 2017年后续调查
响应率
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我们的主要结果来自两轮后续调查，我们试图对所有企业进行访谈，而不仅仅是那些参加了提案竞赛的企业。第一轮调查旨在衡量短期影响，于2016年4月至8月进行，相当于投资准备计划和评审结束后约六个月的时间。总体调查响应率为79.2%，在处理组（79.9%）和控制组（78.5%）之间没有显著差异。此外，我们还收集了关于企业运营状况、员工数量以及是否进行了外部投资谈判的信息，从而使得92.2%的企业有基本数据可用。
第二轮后续调查于2017年8月至2018年3月进行，相当于干预后平均两年。此第二轮调查的总体响应率为85.0%，同样在处理组（86.2%）和控制组（83.7%）之间没有显著差异，94.5%的企业提供了关于企业运营状况和股权获得情况的数据。