Women selected for treatment were offered a choice among several time slots in order to attend live classes over Zoom. Given that each recruitment round only had between 40 and 120 in each treatment group assignment, and the need to have several class time offerings, this meant that the typical online class only had around 20 participants. Training took place 2 or 3 times a week, typically in the evenings, in nine two-hour sessions conducted over Zoom, for a total of 18 hours of training. This was supplemented with several takehome exercises for the participants to do.

The control group was offered an asynchronous online training option, where they could access the slides and webinars of the same content as the ‘top-down’ treatment through the CREA course platform by setting up an account. At the end of each module there was a small quiz, and entrepreneurs were considered to graduate from the program if they registered and completed all four modules. This enables us to see how much live Zoom classes add value over a zero marginal cost asynchronous option, and also was intended to reduce the risk of attrition by having offered something to all firms. Our prior was that take-up of this offering would be low. This was the case in practice, with only 11 percent of control firms completing at least one module, and fewer than 7 percent completing all four modules.

# **2.3 COVID-19 Context**

Our project takes place between November 2020 and July 2022, and so covers a period in which the global COVID-19 pandemic was taking place. While the pandemic limited the willingness of organizations such as CREA to offer large in-person gatherings, Mexico had somewhat limited and loosely enforced shutdowns, which varied by state.<sup>3</sup> By the time our training started and follow-up surveys were taking place, the initial period of most severe shocks and shutdowns had already taken place, and during our follow-up surveys we find 90 percent of firms on average to be open and making sales. In Appendix D we test for heterogeneous impacts by whether firms are classified as essential or non-essential businesses from the point of view of COVID-19 regulations, and find no significant differences. Mexico’s economy grew at 4.7% in 2021 and 3.1% in 2022, recovering from the pandemic year of 2020. Therefore, firms were in a situation where they could largely operate, the economy was recovering, and they could use tools taught in the course.

# **2.4 Data Collection and Measuring Impacts**

We worked with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) Mexico to conduct two rounds of followup surveys. The first took place two months after training started (January 2021-January 2022), and was intended to measure short-term impacts and see whether firm owners had implemented some of the practices they were taught in training. The second took place after 6 to 8 months (August 2021-July 2022), to see if these impacts were sustained. Since the participants were recruited online from across Mexico and Guatemala, follow-up took place through a combination of phone calls and online questionnaires.

After multiple attempts at re-contacting firm owners, we were able to re-interview 1,592

> 3For example, the policy was described as "No police. No curfews. No fines. No regrets" (Sheridan, 2021)

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