- the respondent was currently operating a business in the follow-up round and start dates of the business were the same across the follow-up round and the baseline round (i.e. follow-up 1); or

- the respondent was currently operating a business in the follow-up round and the start date of the business was missing in the follow-up round<sup>12</sup> ; or

- a person knowledgeable on the matter answered that the respondent was currently owning a business in the follow-up round, if the owner could not be interviewed after repeated attempts.

We coded _survival_ to zero, if:

- the respondent was not operating a business in the follow-up round; or

- the respondent was currently operating a business in the follow-up round, but start dates of the businesses reported in the follow-up and baseline round (i.e. follow-up 1) did not coincide; or

- a person knowledgeable on the matter answered that the respondent was not owning a business in the follow-up round, if the owner could not be interviewed after repeated attempts.

We coded _newfirmstart_ to one, if the respondent was currently operating a business in the follow-up round, but start dates of the businesses reported in the follow-up and baseline round (i.e. follow-up 1) did not coincide. Given that firms were only asked for their start dates in follow-up rounds 2 to 4, if they had been established in the survey year, this should have picked up new firm start.

We coded _newfirmstart_ to zero, if the respondent was not operating a business, or _survival_ had been coded to one.

In a final step, we then recoded _survival_ for firms that had been started in a given round and had then been coded as surviving in a later round, because they had appeared with missing start dates in this round.

# _Sri Lanka Microenterprise Survey (SLMS)_

The Sri Lanka Microenterprise Survey (SLMS) was designed to evaluate an experiment to measure the impact of providing capital grants to microenterprises. It took place in three Southern and South-Western districts of Sri Lanka: Kalutara, Galle and Matara. One-time grants of between US$100 and US$200 were given in cash or in-kind (as business equipment) to male and female-owned enterprises, some of whom had been affected by the December 2004 tsunami. A door-to-door screening survey of households was used to identify enterprises with invested capital of 100,000 rupees (about US$1000) or less, excluding investments in land and buildings, resulting in a baseline sample of 617 enterprises in retail trade and manufacturing, operated by owners 22 to 65 years old, and with no paid employees.

> 12 Businesses were only asked their start dates in follow-up rounds 2 to 4 if they had been established in the survey year. We hence assumed that all firms which had missing values for start dates in these rounds, had been established earlier. We corrected for potential erroneous coding as a result of this rule in a final step. Initially we had tried to use ISIC codes of the businesses reported in different rounds to code _survival_ , coding _survival_ to one if a firm reported in a follow-up round was operating in the same sector as in in the baseline (i.e. follow-up 1) round and as closed, if they were in different sectors. This led however to extremely high closure rates, and a visual inspection of the sectors in two consecutive survey waves revealed that sectors of firms coded as closed with this rule, were very similar, although having different ISIC codes. As a result, we decided not to use ISIC codes for the coding of _survival_ .

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