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New release of the World Income Inequality Database

The most comprehensive collection of income inequality statistics now through 2022

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Cambridge Elements in Development Economics is an Open Access series of peer-reviewed, original, authoritative, and succinct publications combining the best features of books and journals, made especially for digital access!

Report: Towards peace, decent work, and greater equality

Research evidence for transforming economies, states, and societies

The Job Ladder: Transforming informal work and livelihoods in developing countries

NEW BOOK - Available now on Open Access. Providing a nuanced view of informality across a range of developing economies using a common conceptual framework.

New WIID Explorer!

A powerful tool for accessing and analysing data on income inequality

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79 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...

Blog

A Commentary on Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (ed. Wim Naudé)

by Robert J. Strom April 2011

Robert J. Strom Interest in the study of entrepreneurship has flourished among scholars in recent years. This research has brought to light, among...

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...

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...

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

Internationalization of Finnish Firms and their Response to Global Challenges

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

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...

Working Paper

The Software and Information Services Sector in Argentina

The software and information services (SIS) sector is at the heart of the New Economy and has been rapidly growing through the whole world during the last decades. This is also the case in Argentina where in the middle of a deep recession, the...

Working Paper

Source of Finance, Growth and Firm Size – Evidence from China

Using a comprehensive firm-level dataset spanning the period 1998-2005, this paper provides a thorough investigation of the relationship between firm size, total factor productivity growth and financial structure in China, controlling for the...

Working Paper

Impact of Technology on the Competitiveness of the Indian Small Manufacturing Sector

This paper endeavours to study the impact of technology on the competitiveness of the Indian small-scale automotive component units. The effect of technology is measured by directly introducing it in the production function along with the...

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...

Working Paper

Informal Firms in Developing Countries

We analyse potential dynamic benefits for a firm from having the option of adopting informal status. Informality may be a stepping stone, without which formality might never be achieved. This result obtains for a broad range of realistic parameter...

Working Paper

Linkages, Access to Finance and the Performance of Small-Scale Enterprises in Kenya

Micro- and small-scale enterprises (MSEs) have become important players in the Kenyan economy, but at the same time they continue to face constraints that limit their development. Lack of access to financial services is one of the main constraints...