This study analyzes the difference in the decline in sales between small and medium-size enterprises and large firms (the “gap”) following the outbreak of COVID-19 in 19 developing countries. The decline...
Ethnic fractionalization has both positive and negative consequences. It is contended that the positive effects due to skill complementarity in the production process apply to large firms that have more...
The relationship between paid maternity leave and the share of female workers in registered private firms is analyzed using firm-level survey data for 111 developing and emerging countries. Theoretically...
This study uncovers a gender labor productivity gap among informal firms in 14 developing economies. The results show that labor productivity is approximately 15.2 percent (or 0.165 log point) lower among...
The informal sector is an important source of livelihoods and jobs for a vast majority of people in developing countries. However, there is concern that it may undermine growth and development of the formal...
The present paper estimates the impact of bureaucratic corruption on access to finance of small and medium-size enterprises in 114 developing countries. Corruption can hurt small and medium-size enterprises’...
The advent of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has led to a severe liquidity crunch among private firms. Yet, formal analysis of the impact of a liquidity crunch or access to finance on the performance...
Theory suggests several ways in which exporting may benefit women’s employment. However, the empirical evidence is mixed and limited, especially for developing countries. This paper uses firm-level survey...
The informal sector is an important source of livelihoods and jobs for a vast majority of people in developing countries. However, there is concern that the informal sector may undermine job creation in...
Payments of bribes and the expenses incurred on rent-seeking activities impose a significant financial burden on private firms, which is compounded when they do not have enough funds of their own or find...
Malaysia is no stranger to external shocks affecting its macroeconomy. Over the past two decades, it was buffeted by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis (AFC), the 2001 global slowdown after 9/11, and the...
Regulation often creates opportunities for public officials to extract bribes. If this is true, deregulation offers a simple way to combat corruption. However, empirical evidence on the corruption and...
Using firm-level survey data on registered private firms collected by the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys, this paper compares the level of labor productivity in 22 upper-middle-income countries and 11...
Economic growth in Lao PDR is projected to rebound to 6.5 percent in 2019, up from 6.3 percent in 2018. This pick up is expected to be driven by growth of the construction sector supported by investments...
Economic growth in Lao PDR is projected to rebound to 6.5 percent in 2019, up from 6.3 percent in 2018. This pick up is expected to be driven by growth of the construction sector supported by investments...
Using firm-level survey data for a large cross section of countries, the paper assesses the gap in labor productivity between formal and informal firms in developing countries for which comparable data...
Using firm-level data from more than 39,000 firms in 111 economies, this paper tests the hypothesis that corruption impedes productivity more at higher levels of regulation. The analysis finds that there...
What sorts of conditions make some countries more prone to corruption than the others? This is an important question for understanding how corruption arises and how to combat it. The present paper attempts...
The relationship between the length of paid maternity leave and the proportion of female workers in the private sector is explored using firm-level survey data for 66 mostly developing countries. The paper...
Firm-level survey data on registered private firms reveal that firms in Malaysia have much lower labor productivity than their counterparts in 43 upper-middle-income and 14 high-income countries. It will...