Recent empirical work finds that Research and Development (R&D) expenditures, particularly from the business sector, tend to move in parallel with gross domestic product (GDP). Comin and Gertler (2006)...
Some informal or unregistered businesses are established to take advantage of business opportunities (opportunity firms) while others are established because the owner cannot find a satisfactory job (necessity...
From a sample of informal firms in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, Madagascar and Mauritius, this note compares male, and female-owned businesses. The author test a number of hypotheses...
In the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region, countries show great variations in their levels of openness and how intensively they trade. There is a strong and positive correlation in export and...
Evidence from aggregate and micro-level data shows that globally engaged firms are better than firms serving only domestic markets in various performance measures. However, inefficiencies in the business...
This note uses the standardized enterprise survey datasets to systematically study the use of different financing sources for young firms. The authors find that in all countries, younger firms rely less...
About 20 percent of firms in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region are victims of crime during a year. While losses to firms from crime incidents average 0.5 percent of a firm's annual sales, expenses...
The retail and wholesale sector in India is one of the largest sectors, contributing 14 percent to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 10 percent to formal employment. The sector has also shown...
A comparison of service and manufacturing firms in the informal or unregistered sector in Cote d'Ivoire, Madagascar and Mauritius shows that service firms are larger in terms of total sales and also generate...
Data from the World Bank's financial crisis survey show that despite the magnitude of the credit crunch, the majority of firms considered the contraction in demand to be the most important effect of the...
The Financial Crisis Survey monitors the effects of the financial crisis on private enterprises. The second wave of data was collected in February and March 2010 covering 1,892 enterprises in Bulgaria...
The latest data of the Financial Crisis Survey show continued negative sales performance, on average, but the general rate of decline seems to have slowed. Permanent employment remained somewhat depressed...
Trade credit is an important source of financing for firms in emerging markets. In this note, the author identify the firm and market characteristics associated with the extension of supplier financing...