Journal Article
Benefits of Formalization
Based on unique panel data consisting of both formal and informal firms, this paper uses a matched double difference approach to examine the relationship between legal status and firm level outcomes in micro, small and medium manufacturing...
Working Paper
Exporting and Productivity
In this paper, we investigate the relationship between exporting and productivity in the case of Vietnam using an extensive firm level panel dataset for the period 2005-11. We separate out productivity effects of exporting due to self-selection...
Working Paper
Learning by Exporting
In this paper, we aim to analyse the learning by exporting hypothesis in the Mozambican context. Due to the presence of the born-global phenomenon among exporters, we address the endogeneity introduced by self-selection by combining a generalized BO...
Policy Brief
Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries
How does innovation impact on development? How, and under what conditions, do entrepreneurs in developing countries innovate? And what can be done to support innovation by entrepreneurs in developing countries? This policy brief addresses these...
Working Paper
When to Start a New Firm?
The success of new start-up firms often depends on timing. It is valuable for the potential entrepreneur to wait for the right moment before starting a new firm. In this paper we provide a theoretical model to determine the optimal time for starting...
Working Paper
The Performance of the Manufacturing Sector in Tanzania
Tanzania’s industrial sector has evolved through various stages since independence in 1961, from nascent and undiversified to state-led import substitution industrialization, and subsequently to de-industrialization under the structural adjustment...
Working Paper
How Many Manufacturing Firms are there in Mozambique?
This paper addresses the issue of poor data on Mozambican manufacturing firms. A new dataset (the merged manufacturing database) is merged from provincial industrial databases from each of Mozambique’s 11 provinces. The new dataset is assessed by...
Working Paper
Emergence of Unorthodox Ownership and Governance Structures in East Asia
This paper examines the nature of the unorthodox ownership and governance structures that are emerging among firms and the way these structures are supporting the remarkable economic growth in the transition economies of East Asia, as represented in...
Journal Article
Does Gender Influence the Provision of Fringe Benefits? Evidence From Vietnamese SMEs
This contribution studies the provision of fringe benefits using a unique survey of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam. Analysis of the survey reveals that women who own SMEs are more likely than men who own similar firms to provide...
Working Paper
State-business relations as drivers of economic performance
Effective state-business relations (SBRs) have been lacking in industrial policy thinking despite the strong theoretical case for SBRs. The empirical study of state-business relations in developing countries has emerged only recently, with notable...
Working Paper
Is Small Beautiful? Small Enterprise, Aid and Employment in Africa
Aid providers frequently link supporting small firms to job creation. Small firms create about half of new jobs in Africa, but they also have higher failure rates. Ignoring firm exit exaggerates net employment growth. Using panel data for Ethiopia...
Working Paper
Use of ICTs and the Economic Performance of SMEs in East Africa
This paper assesses the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their impact on the economic performance of small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) of three East African countries: Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Findings of the...
Journal Article
Trade and Endogenous Formation of Regions in a Developing Country
The authors present a model of regional catching-up and development without scale effects. Regional growth is driven by technological imitation which is determined by positive externalities from international trade, the regions’ geography, and...
Journal Article
The link between firm-level innovation and aggregate productivity growth
A broad definition of innovation input is used, in which R&D is one of several sources of innovation. A quantitative innovation output measure is used in the analysis, which is based on a large representative sample of firms, including small firms...
Journal Article
Innovation and performance in manufacturing industries
The availability of the new internationally harmonized innovation survey data collected from OECD countries has created some interesting opportunities for studying the following two key areas: (1) The determinants of innovation behavior at firm level...
Book
Small and Medium Enterprises in Transitional Economies
Research by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research shows that the small enterprise sector by itself will not create successful economic growth. Without supporting local-level institutions, a surrounding...
Book
Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Development
Entrepreneurship and innovation are two of the most pervasive concepts of our times, yet there are still gaps in our understanding of the interactions between entrepreneurship and innovation, particularly in developing countries. This book is an...
Book
Entrepreneurship and Economic Development
Promoting private sector development and entrepreneurship in particular, has become a defining feature of development policy in recent years. At a time when global development is being jeopardized by man-made and natural disasters, including...
Working Paper
Context and Policies for the Transformation and Growth of SMEs
This paper analyses the Hungarian experience with SMEs development by highlighting the factors and policies that explain the sector features and dynamics and utilizes this experience to suggest an interpretation of the striking differences with...
Working Paper
The Determinants of Loan Contracts to Business Firms
This paper deals with loan contracting from a private bank in Vietnam. We focus on the main loan contract features that the bank uses in lending to business firms, namely loan maturity, collateral and loan interest rate. Based upon the simultaneous...
Working Paper
Corporate Governance, Innovative Enterprise, and Economic Development
The notion that good corporate governance means maximizing shareholder value derives from the neoclassical theory of the market economy. I explain why this perspective is highly problematic for understanding the operation and performance of the...
Journal Article
Corporate social responsibility in a competitive business environment
Using a representative sample of more than 5,000 Vietnamese enterprises, we explore the firm-level productivity effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The data enables us to create 12 quantitative CSR measures, which can be grouped into...
Working Paper
Corporate social responsibility in a competitive business environment
Using a specially designed survey instrument in combination with a representative sample of Vietnamese enterprises, we explore firm-level efficiency effects of corporate social responsibility. We find a positive relationship between adoption of...
Working Paper
The Benefits and Costs of Group Affiliation
This paper investigates the benefits and associated agency costs of using internal capital markets through affiliating with groups using data of two thousand firms from nine East Asian economies between 1994-6. We find that mature and slow-growing...