How many and which firms issue equity and bonds in domestic and international markets, how do these firms grow relative to non-issuing firms, and how does firm performance vary along the firm size distribution? To evaluate these questions, a new data set is constructed by matching data on...

Is it the institutions or firm characteristics at birth that shape startups and their early growth in developing countries? Using comprehensive data from the Indian Annual Survey of Industries this paper addresses this question by studying the early lifecycle of firms across diverse...

Survey data from 120 developing countries are used to examine the relation between establishment size and age in the formal sector. Existing research suggests that manufacturing establishments in developing countries do not grow over time, most likely because of market imperfections and...

Two otherwise identical firms that enter the same market in different months, one in January and one in December, will report dramatically different annual sales for the first calendar year of operations. This partial year effect in annual data leads to downward biased observations of the level...

How corruption affects economic performance has been studied for over a decade. Yet the lack of detailed firm-level data has limited research regarding who is carrying the real burden of corruption. This study shows that for firms in the Latin America and Caribbean region, bribery significantly...

This paper examines the dynamics and characteristics of high-growth firms in Tunisia. Further knowledge about the dynamics of these firms can inform the design of business support policies, especially toward small and medium-size firms. The analysis suggests that between 1999 and 2015, about 9...

High-growth firms have been widely studied in advanced countries, but little is known about such stellar performers in Africa. Using establishment-level data from Ethiopia, this paper finds that the incidence of high-growth firms stands at an average of 7 percent, a figure comparable to that of...

How do high-growth firms affect the rest of the economy? This paper explores this question using Hungarian administrative microdata. It finds evidence of stronger productivity growth for firms supplying and operating in industries with more high-growth firms. The surge of high-growth firms'...

This paper documents how firms in Arab countries issue equity, corporate bonds, and syndicated loans in domestic and international markets to obtain financing and grow. Using a new data set on issuance activity and firm performance, the paper finds that capital raising through these markets has...

This paper documents new facts about the joint evolution of firm performance and prices in international markets and proposes a theory of firm dynamics emphasizing the interaction between learning about demand and quality choice to explain the observed patterns. Using data from the Portuguese...