This paper examines how stringent de facto firing regulations affect firm size throughout the developing world. We exploit a large firm level dataset across 63 countries and within country variation in the enforcement of the labor codes in countries with very different de jure firing...

Contrary to the predictions of the insider–outsider model, we show that the large majority of outsiders in developing countries support, rather than oppose, protective labour regulations. This evidence holds across countries in different regions, across different types of protective labour...

We model entry by entrepreneurs into new markets in developing economies with regulatory barriers in the form of licence fees and bureaucratic delay. Because laissez faire leads to quot;excessivequot; entry, a licence fee can increase welfare by discouraging entry. However, in the presence of a...

This paper examines micro-level channels of how financial development can affect macroeconomic outcomes like the level of income and export intensity. We investigate theoretically and empirically how financial constraints affect a firm's innovation and export activities, using unique firm survey...

In 2000, Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise was published. This report, cosponsored by The World Bank and UNESCO, came at a time of transition in higher education worldwide and helped shape higher education policy and thinking in several developing countries. This...

Emigration first increases before decreasing with economic development. This bell-shaped relationship between emigration and development was first hypothesized by the theory of the mobility transition (Zelinsky, 1971). Although several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the upward segment...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a contribution to the identification of the role of entrepreneurship in economic growth by mapping out: 1) alternative ways of looking at entrepreneurship, distinguishing 'creative destruction' from simple 'turbulence'; 2) the different microeconomic...

This paper studies the interplay between left-handedness and economic development. To explain the decline and subsequent recovery of left-handedness observed over the last few centuries in the Western world, we propose a theory in which economic development influences the prevalence of...