We develop a general equilibrium model to assess the quantitative impact of distorting institutions and policies related to the poor business environment in 30 sub-Saharan African countries. A subset of the distortions - namely, regulation, crime, corruption, and poor infrastructure - is modeled...

Recent years have seen a significant focus in the literature on growth and development on the idea that legal and political institutions are the key determinant of economic development. The main finding of this paper is that the focus on the primacy of legal and political institutions may be...

Following the collapse of planning, new small and medium-sized firms rapidly emerged in all transition economies. Using firm level data, we investigate the interaction between the widespread opportunities for new business activities such firms faced and their business environment. The business...

Africa is the poorest part of the world and it has the worst environment for long term business success by most standards. Empirical works normally find a negative correlation between income per worker and measures for poor business environment. This paper develops a general equilibrium model to...

Using firm-level data covering 709 cities in 128 countries, we examine the role of a comprehensive list of business and institutional environment variables at the sub-national level in explaining firm employment and productivity growth. We find basic protection (with corruption as an element),...

The business environment consists of those forces and conditions outside the organizations boundary which have the potential to affect the operations of the business. The business environment is made up of the internal environment and the more encompassing external environment. The Business...

This paper presents new data on electricity connections for businesses in 183 economies. The data cover information on procedures, time, and cost that a small or medium size business with a moderate electricity need has to invest to obtain a new electricity connection. The study finds...