Recent studies have suggested that women's business decisions are influenced by members of their household, especially their spouse, and that these intrahousehold dynamics contribute to gender gaps in entrepreneurship outcomes. This in-depth qualitative study among microentrepreneurs in urban...

As in most economies, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in emerging markets are widely believed to be the engine of growth across. Over the last decade, many researchers and academics have tried to analyze the issue of MSME access to finance, emphasizing their dependence on credit and...

This report provides an overview of the demand and supply side of MSME finance as well as certain aspects of the enabling environment. A detailed analysis of the financial sector infrastructure for MSME financing and the secured transactions framework was outside of the scope of this report but...

Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are an important instrument of growth for India's economy. The contribution of the MSME sector to India's gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated to be around 8 to 9 percent in 2012 after agriculture; MSMEs have emerged as the second largest source...

Sectoral segregation is often used to explain a large part of a well-documented gender earnings gap in business profits. Women tend to sort into different sectors than men, and the sectors dominated by women tend to be less profitable. This paper investigates the horizontal dimension of sectoral...

Mental health, well-being and lasting economic outcomes are intimately connected. However, in geographies marked by fragility, conflict and violence, entrepreneurs of small and medium-size experience chronic stress and poor mental health on a regular basis. This paper describes the incremental...

Is there a mindset gap holding women back in business? Can entrepreneurship training instill a set of attitudes, behaviors, and strategies that are thought to underpin success in business such as motivation, perseverance, and self-confidence? This study conducted two randomized controlled trials...

Business survey outcomes for micro and small firms are notoriously noisy, with multiple sources of measurement and recall error. This paper introduces a new survey methodology that combines automatic consistency checks of electronic data collection with triangulation and dynamic adjustment to...

During the past decades, firms from emerging economies have significantly increased the amount of financing obtained in capital markets. Whereas the literature argues that international markets have been an important contributor to this process, the role of domestic markets is mostly unknown. By...

Gender disparities in small and medium-size enterprise lending exist around the world and impede the growth of millions of women-led firms. This paper examines a potential driver of these disparities: gender-biased loan officers. Officer bias is measured through a novel loan application...