This paper studies the effects of voluntary accounting information disclosure through auditing on firm access to finance, exposure to corruption, and sales growth. Relying on a data set of more than 70,000 firms in 121 countries, the analysis finds that disclosure can be a double-edged sword. On...

We employ 19,521 unique firms in 30 transition economies to investigate the relation between the origins of private firms and their financing patterns. In our sample, the private firms are either privatized former state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or ab initio (from the beginning) private firms....

I investigate whether the impact of firm-level corruption on growth varies based on origin of the firm. More specifically, I examine how corruption in the business environment affects growth for privatized former state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and originally private firms in transition...

In this study, I investigate the association between firm innovation and formal versus informal finance for 5,982 firms in 30 transition economies. I also examine whether the association between firm innovation and formal versus informal finance differs between developed and developing...

In this study, using a unique firm-level survey database, I investigate which firm constraints in the business environment directly affect growth for over 15,000 mostly small- and medium-sized firms in 30 Eastern European and Central Asian countries. I also examine how financing constraints...

We examine the relation between financing patterns and firm growth in transition economies. Using a survey dataset covering over 20,000 firms in 30 Eastern European and Central Asian countries from 2002-2014, we find that firms using formal bank finance grow faster than those financed by...

This paper studies the effects of voluntary accounting information disclosure through auditing on firm access to finance, exposure to corruption, and sales growth. Relying on a data set of more than 70,000 firms in 121 countries, the analysis finds that disclosure can be a double-edged sword. On...

In this paper, I examine the signaling value of internationally-recognized quality certification in improving firm's access to finance for 39,638 mostly small and medium-sized firms in 137 countries. I find that certified firms have better access to external finance as compared to otherwise...

In this study, we employ the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data collected in 2002, 2005, and 2009 for 21,499 firms from 27 Eastern European and Central Asian countries to examine firm-level growth constraints faced by privatized firms versus those faced by the originally (de novo) private...

Firms operating in corrupt environments routinely face an ethical dilemma. On the one hand, bribery can be used as an efficient strategy to “get things done”. On the other hand, corruption is unethical, illegal, and a social ill that people detest. A corrupt environment is also...