The baseline survey was conducted in April 2005. Firms in the sample were then randomly allocated into one of two treatment groups, which received US $100 or $200 either after the first or the third survey round and either in cash or in-kind. Details on the experimental design and intervention can be found in de Mel et al. (2008, 2009, and 2012). Follow-up surveys were conducted at quarterly intervals, from July 2005 to April 2007, and semi-annually in October 2007 and April 2008. Further follow-up surveys were carried out in June and December 2010, in September 2015, and in March 2016. We included all 15 waves of data collection in our sample, which allows us to observe firms for horizons of up to eleven years. Using firms assigned to the control group, we include 269 firms at baseline from the SLMS in our sample For rounds 2 to 11, we coded _survival_ from round to round to one, if the owner was still working in the same line of business, he or she had been working in, in the previous round., and to zero if the line of business had changed. _Newfirmstart_ was coded to one for rounds 2 to 11 if the line of business had changed and the owner stated that his or her main activity was to operate a new business. If the line of business had changed but the main activity was a different one (for instance, working for a wage, looking for work, or housework or looking after children), we coded _newfirmstart_ to zero.

In round 12, questions on business continuation referred to the original baseline business. We coded _survival_ to one, if the owner was still working in the same line of business, he or she had been working in, during the baseline survey in April 2005, and to zero if the line of business had changed. _Newfirmstart_ was coded to one if either the line of the original business had changed or the owner had started a new line of business while continuing to operate the original business, and the owner stated that his or her main activity after closing, selling or changing the business was either to operate a different business or to ooperate a new business along with the original one. If the line of business had changed but the main activity was different to operating another business, we coded _newfirmstart_ to zero. For round 13, we coded _survival_ and _newfirmstart_ based on the same criteria, only that the questions asked here referred to the business being operated in round 12 and _survival_ and _newfirmstart_ were hence being coded from round to round.

In rounds 14 and 15 we coded _survival_ from round to round to one, if:

- the owner stated that he or she was currently owning a business, and had not changed the industry of the business since the previous round or closed down the business he or she had been running and started a new business; or

- a person knowledgeable of the matter answered that either the enterprise owner was still running the business, or the business was being run by an immediate family member, or the business was being run by some other person, if the respondent refused to participate in the survey or could not be located.

We coded _survival_ from round to round to zero in these rounds, if:

- the owner stated that he or she was currently not owning a business; or

- the owner said that he or she had changed the industry of the business since the previous round, or that he or she had closed down the business he or she had been running and started a new business; or

- a person knowledgeable of the matter answered that the enterprise was closed or not functioning, if the respondent refused to participate in the survey or could not be located.

_Newfirmstart_ was coded in rounds 14 and 15 to one, if: 52