Sri Lanka Microenterprise Survey (SLMS)

Suresh de Mel, University of Peradeniya

The Sri Lanka Microenterprise project is a panel survey of 600 microenterprises located in districts of Kalutara, Galle and Matara. The survey was designed to measure the recovery of enterprises following the December 26, 2004 Asian tsunami, and to measure returns to incremental capital investments. The enterprises were surveyed quarterly between April 2005 and April 2007, and again in October 2007 and April 2008. The sample includes enterprises suffering direct damage from the tsunami, enterprises located near the coast, but not suffering damage, and enterprises located further inland. Papers that include a more detailed description of the sample and survey are linked below.

Data from the project is available on this website. Data files (compressed STATA format) and survey instrument (pdf format) are available for all 11 rounds of the survey by clicking the links below. Information which could compromise the confidentiality of the enterprises surveyed are not included in the publicly released data.

DATA

Original data sets (by wave):
SLMS Data, Round 1       SLMS Data, Round 4        SLMS Data, Round 7         SLMS Data, Round 10
SLMS Data, Round 2       SLMS Data, Round 5        SLMS Data, Round 8         SLMS Data, Round 11
SLMS Data, Round 3       SLMS Data, Round 6        SLMS Data, Round 9

SURVEY INSTRUMENTS
SLMS Survey Instrument Round 1         SLMS Survey Instrument Round 5         SLMS Survey Instrument Round 9

SLMS Survey Instrument Round 2         SLMS Survey Instrument Round 6         SLMS Survey Instrument Round 10
SLMS Survey Instrument Round 3         SLMS Survey Instrument Round 7         SLMS Survey Instrument Round 11
SLMS Survey Instrument Round 4         SLMS Survey Instrument Round 8

Codelists for Survey Data:
Codelist Round 1          Codelist Round 4           Codelist Round 7            Codelist Round 10
Codelist Round 2          Codelist Round 5            Codelist Round 8            Codelist Round 11
Codelist Round 3          Codelist Round 6            Codelist Round 9

Special Data sets and Stata .do files:
DATA which reproduces the results in “Returns to Capital in Microenterprises: Evidence from a Field Experiment”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol 123(4), pp. 1329-1372.

Available soon:
Stata .do file for tables in body of paper
Stata .do file for online appendix results

PAPERS and related files:
Returns to Capital In Microenterprises: Evidence from a Field Experiment. Quarterly Journal of Economocs, November 2008
Measuring Microenterprise Profits: Must We Ask How the Sausage is Made? Journal of Development Economics, February 2009

The project would not have been possible without funding from NSF grants SES-0523167 and SES-0617424, and funding from the World Bank.