Drawing on the World Bank Investment Climate Assessment surveys, this paper investigates the relationship between firm-level technical efficiency and the investment climate for 22 developing economies and eight manufacturing industries. The authors first propose three measures of firms'...

Data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys show that indirect costs (related to infrastructure and services) account for a relatively high share of firms' costs in poor African countries and pose a competitive burden on African firms. We estimate firm-level revenue and value-added functions for...

Drawing on the World Bank Investment Climate Assessment surveys, this paper investigates the relationship between firm-level technical efficiency and the investment climate for 22 developing economies and eight manufacturing industries. The authors first propose three measures of firms'...

Differences in the investment climate have recently gained centre stage in explaining variations in competitiveness, growth and prosperity across countries or regions. The investment climate comprises institutional and policy variables that have a crucial bearing on business performance, but...