- the business being owned in the given round had been started after the date of the previous survey round; or

- the owner stated that he or she had either changed the industry in which the business was operating, or started another business while still operating the original business, or closed down the previously run business and started a new one.

_Newfirmstart_ was coded to zero in these rounds, if:

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

Except for round 12, we then recoded _survival_ in a way that it referred to survival of firms operating at baseline by recoding it to zero for all subsequent rounds, if it had been coded as zero in a given round and a new firm start had been coded in the same round or later.

# _Sri Lanka Impact Evaluation Survey of Business Training for Women (SLFEMBUSTRAINING)_

The Sri Lanka Impact Evaluation Survey of Business Training for Women (SLFEMBUSTRAINING) was conducted to evaluate a business training intervention aimed at increasing female labor force participation rates and to raise the income levels of low-earning women already in business. It surveys two different groups of females: (i) a representative sample of 628 current female business owners operating in greater Colombo and greater Kandy areas, who had monthly profits of 5,000 Rs or less (US$43), and (ii) a representative sample of 628 women between 25 and 45 years of age in greater Colombo and greater Kandy areas, who were out of the labor force, but who were likely to start working within the next year, called potential business owners. These two groups were first interviewed in January 2009, after which 400 current and 400 potential business owners were allocated to treatment. Four rounds of follow-up surveys were then conducted in September 2009, January 2010, September 2010, and June 2011. A fifth and long-term follow-up survey was conducted in June 2015. Details on the survey and study design are described in de Mel et al. (2014).

Since our interest lies in existing businesses, we use follow-up 1 to 5, including current business owners who were operating a business by the first follow-up round and potential business owners who had started a business by then, and who had been assigned to the control group, as our baseline sample.<sup>13</sup> This resulted in the inclusion of 260 firms at baseline in our sample.

We coded _survival_ from round 1 to round 2 ( i.e. from follow-up 1 to follow-up2) to one, if the owner reported that she was still working in the same line of business as the one she was working in in September 2009. If the owner had changed the line of business of the original business, or was not operating a business anymore, we coded _survival_ from round 1 to 2 to zero. _Newfirmstart_ was coded to one from round 1 to round 2, if the owner answered that she was either operating a different business or operating a new business along with the old one, after closing, changing or selling the business, and to zero, if she was engaged in a different activity then.

In rounds 3 and 4 (the fourth and fifth follow-up) separate questionnaires were given to females owning only one business and those owning more than one business. For single business owners in rounds 3 and 4, we coded _survival_ from round to round to one, if the owner reported that she was still working in the same line of business as the one she was working in in the previous wave. If the owner had changed the line of business of the original business, or was not

> 13 For current business owners we also use round 1 to extract information on time-invariant characteristics that were not asked in round 2.

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