We offer new evidence on the link between price points and price rigidity using two datasets. One is a large weekly transaction price dataset, covering 29 product categories over an eight-year period from a large U.S. supermarket chain. The other is from the Internet, and includes daily prices...

Major conceptual contributions of a number of Nobel-laureates in putting forth a framework linking the citizenry's right to know and access to information with development, have already had a major influence in various fields. However, implementation of transparency-related reforms on the ground...

The Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday period is a major sales period for US retailers. Due to higher store traffic, tasks such as restocking shelves, handling customers’ questions and inquiries, running cash registers, cleaning, and bagging, become more urgent during holidays. As a result, the...

This chapter summarizes the salient results of the World Business Environment Survey (WBES). It shows that important dimensions of the climate for business operation and investment can be measured, analyzed, and compared across countries, and that governance is key to the business environment...

Building from the 2002/03 contribution to the Global Competitiveness Report ("Governance Crossroads"), this paper argues that governance continues to be at a crossroad, its underperformance being evident in most regions and across many countries. This ('governance policy gap') contrasts with the...