This paper estimates the impact of registering for taxes on firm profits in Bolivia, the countrywith the highest levels of informality in Latin America. A new survey of micro and small firmsenables us to control for a rich set of measures of owner ability and business motivations thatcan affect...

Few representative surveys of households of migrants exist, limiting our ability to study theeffects of international migration on sending families. We report the results of an experimentdesigned to compare the performance of three alternative survey methods in collecting datafrom...

Small and informal firms account for a large share of employment in developing countries.The rapid expansion of microfinance services is based on the belief that these firms haveproductive investment opportunities and can enjoy high returns to capital if given theopportunity...

Innovation is key to technology adoption and creation, and to explaining the vast differencesin productivity across and within countries. Despite the central role of the entrepreneur in theinnovation process, data limitations have restricted standard analysis of the determinants ofinnovation to...

Is the vast army of the self-employed in low income countries a source of employment generation? We use data from surveys in Sri Lanka to compare the characteristics of own account workers (non-employers) with wage workers and with owners of larger firms[...]