Formalizing firms can potentially increase the tax base, expand safety and social protections for workers, create good … jobs, and grow the economy. However, the costs and processes of formality may be too challenging for firms, particularly … the smallest firms, to bear. Thus, informal firms may not be able to survive the transition to formality and attempts to …

This paper contributes to better understanding firms' discriminatory behavior in the presence of gender-based legal … enforcement may be at play. The paper also finds that firms' discriminatory behavior harms women's labor market outcomes, in their …

study connects the two findings by exploring whether mobile money use by women-owned firms increases their investment. The … findings indicate that the positive relationship between mobile money use and investment is largely driven by women-owned firms … and is statistically insignificant for men-owned firms. Potential channels of these effects are explored. Women …

networks appear to be key for female-owned firms, with co-ownership with husbands and male role models factoring into the …

The role of 'first movers' in fragile states is critical: they grow and diversify markets in ways that no other firms … do, generating disproportionate impact in terms of development and stability. But pioneer firms are rare in fragile … resetting negative self-fulfilling investor narratives, development finance institutions can help pioneering firms shift the …

A supply chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Firms are constantly managing uncertainties, including unexpected … estimator to investigate how unpredictability in border clearance times for imports affects manufacturing firms' entry, exit … the entry nor the exit rate, but translates into lower survival rates for new exporters, reducing the number of firms that …

the informal sector, on the behavior of formal manufacturing firms in Colombia. To identify causal effects, the analysis … inflows of IDP induce sizable, negative effects on the intensive and extensive margins of production of formal firms. These … effects are stronger for firms operating in sectors that face a stronger competition from the informal economy …

sample of firms in Vietnam, Senegal, and the Brazilian state of Ceara. The analysis finds a large variance in technology … variance in sophistication across firms, which in turn is greater than the variance in sophistication across regions or …

Relying on a novel dataset covering more than 120,000 firms in 60 countries, this paper con-tributes to the debate … the more vulnerable firms and countries, and identifies mismatches between policies provided and policies most sought. It …