It has been argued that the use of personal networks in the hiring process has a positive influence on the wages of referred individuals. However, the value of recommendations to the employer varies according to the type of vacancy to be filled and the provider of information on job applicants....

This paper consists of an introductory survey of two fundamental questions regarding the link between entrepreneurship and economic growth. The first one deals with the endogenous relationship between entrepreneurship and growth. In particular, we suggest that, while more entrepreneurship could...

Using a recently developed model which allows to separate a few well- established employment effects of product and process innovations, this paper reports new results on the relationship between innovation and employment growth in Germany. The model is tailor-made for analysing firm-level...

Microenterprise programs attempt to help poor people start or strengthen small businesses. Funding and political support has grown rapidly. Is microenterprise a good use of scarce development funds? Unfortunately, most evaluations have been case studies in what not to do. Because benefits and...

Wide agreement about the goal of microfinance--to improve the welfare of the poor--has not led to wide agreement about how best to achieve that goal. To aid discussion, I propose a framework for outreach--the social benefits of microfinance--in terms of six aspects: worth, cost, depth, breadth,...

Attempts to gauge the depth of outreach of microfinance organizations usually start--and often end--with the measurement of loan size. But just what is loan size? Loan size has at least seven aspects, each of which matters not only for depth of outreach but also for profitability. The aspects...