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Iacovone, Leonardo

Global Practice on Trade and Competitiveness, The World Bank
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Global Practice on Trade and Competitiveness, The World Bank
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Last updated: January 31, 2025
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Leonardo Iacovone is a Lead Economist in the Trade, Investment and Competitiveness (TIC) Global Practice at the World Bank Group. After having joined the World Bank as Young Professional in 2008, Leonardo has worked in the Development Research Group, the Financial and Private Sector Development Unit of the Africa Region, and the Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship Global Practice. Before joining the World Bank Leonardo worked as economic advisor in Latin America and Southern Africa for UNDP, WTO, UNIDO, USAID, EU, and the Government of Mozambique. Leonardo was trained at Bocconi University of Milan, Italy, University Torquato di Tella of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and received a PhD in Economics from University of Sussex. Leonardo is also Adjoint Professor of Economics at Hertie School, a Research Affiliate with IPA SMEs Initiative and Affiliated Researcher with JPAL. His research has been published in top peer-reviewed journals such as Review of Economic Studies, Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of International Economics, World Development, World Economy, World Bank Economic Review, and Industrial and Corporate Change, and received important recognitions such as the 2009 Paul Geroski Price for the most significant policy contribution awarded to top young economists by the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics.
Citations 166 Scopus

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Sub-Saharan Africa: Africa gender policy × Subject: MICROENTERPRISE × Topic: Private Sector Development ×

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Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    Personal Initiative Training Leads to Remarkable Growth of Women-Owned Small Businesses in Togo
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-01) Campos, Francisco; Frese, Michael; Goldstein, Markus; Iacovone, Leonardo; Johnson, Hillary; McKenzie, David; Mensmann, Mona
    Standard business training programs aim to boost the incomes of the millions of self-employed business owners in developing countries, by teaching accounting, marketing and other basic business skills. However, research shows limited impacts of this traditional business training approach. Through an experiment in Togo, we introduced the personal initiative training program, a new and effective psychology-based entrepreneurship training that outperforms traditional business training. The personal initiative training increased firm profits in Togo by 30 percent relative to a control group, compared to no significant impacts from a traditional business training. Personal initiative training led to more than just a boost in profits for micro entrepreneurs. After the training business owners were more innovative, introduced new products, borrowed more and made larger investments. The personal initiative training was particularly effective for female entrepreneurs, for whom traditional training has often been in effective. Women who received personal initiative training saw their profits increase by 40 percent, compared to 5 percent for traditional business. This study’s findings make a strong case for the role of psychology in better influencing how small business training programs are taught in West Africa and beyond. It shows the importance of developing an entrepreneurial mindset in addition to learning the business practices of successful entrepreneurs. Based on these promising results, the personal initiative training is being implemented in programs in Mozambique, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Jamaica, and Mexico.
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    Teaching Personal Initiative Beats Traditional Training in Boosting Small Business in West Africa
    (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2017-09-22) Campos, Francisco; Frese, Michael; Goldstein, Markus; Iacovone, Leonardo; Johnson, Hillary C.; McKenzie, David; Mensmann, Mona
    Standard business training programs aim to boost the incomes of the millions of self-employed business owners in developing countries by teaching basic financial and marketing practices, yet the impacts of such programs are mixed. We tested whether a psychology-based personal initiative training approach, which teaches a proactive mindset and focuses on entrepreneurial behaviors, could have more success. A randomized controlled trial in Togo assigned microenterprise owners to a control group (n = 500), a leading business training program (n = 500), or a personal initiative training program (n = 500). Four follow-up surveys tracked outcomes for firms over 2 years and showed that personal initiative training increased firm profits by 30%, compared with a statistically insignificant 11% for traditional training. The training is cost-effective, paying for itself within 1 year. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science Vol 357, issue 6357: 1287-90.