Little is known about innovation in developing countries, partly because of the lack of comparable and reliable data. Collecting data on firm-level innovation is challenging because of the subjective definition of what determines an innovation, a problem that is exacerbated in developing...

Firm informality is pervasive throughout the developing world, Bangladesh being no exception. The informal status of many firms substantially reduces the tax basis and therefore impacts the provision of public goods. The literature on encouraging formalization has predominantly focused on...

Firms normally keep certain inventories, including raw materials, work-in-progress, and finished goods, to operate seamlessly and not to miss possible business opportunities. But inventory is costly, and the optimal firm inventory differs depending on various economic conditions, including trade...

Infrastructure is an important driving force for economic growth. It reduces trade and transaction costs and stimulates the productivity of the economy. Africa has been lagging behind in the global manufacturing market. Among others, infrastructure is an important constraint in many African...

The enterprise reforms of the 1990s profoundly changed the structure of the economy in China. With the deepening of market economy, the share of the state-owned and collective enterprises declined. Expansion and contraction, as well as establishment and closure, of firms became a common...

Under financial constraints, exporting may have less to do with productivity and more to do with financial resources. The established relationship between exporting and productivity would differ when examined through the lens of the working capital needs of the firm. The hypothesis that working...

This paper evaluates the effects of the FAMEX export promotion program in Tunisia on the performance of beneficiary firms. While much of the literature assesses only the short-term impact of such programs, the paper considers also the longer-term impact. Propensity-score matching,...

Many developing countries are unable to provide their industrial sector with reliable power and many enterprises have to contend with electricity that is insufficient and of poor quality. Because of these constraints, firms in developing countries opt for self-generation even though it is widely...

This paper introduces a novel corporate financial vulnerability index that tracks financial conditions of the non-financial corporate sector. Using the balance sheet information of 14,207 listed non-financial firms in 69 emerging markets and developing economies, the index shows that, at the...

This paper investigates empirically the linkages between corporate debt overhang and investment activity at the firm level for a cross section of large-sized emerging market and developing economies. It analyzes the extent to which investment may be discouraged by high levels of debt that put at...