We analyze a large stratified random sample of firms that provide us with measures of performance and each firm’s top manager’s perception of the severity of business environment constraints faced by his/her firm. Unlike most existing studies that rely on external and aggregated proxy...

We analyze a large stratified random sample of firms that provide us with measures of performance and each firm’s top manager’s perception of the severity of business environment constraints faced by his/her firm. Unlike most existing studies that rely on external and aggregated proxy...

It is commonly accepted that the business environment — encompassing features of the legal, regulatory, financial, and institutional system of a country — has an impact on the performance of firms. As barriers to doing business appear to vary widely across regions and countries, it...

We use two large samples of firms to assess the effects of business environment constraints, competition, export orientation, and ownership on firm performance. We deal with omitted variables, errors in variables, and endogeneity, and find that few business constraints affect performance....

Energy subsidies are used widely. Although adverse from an efficiency perspective, subsidies confer private benefits on particular groups and, once introduced, tend to be persistent. This paper examines the reasons why and possible ways of overcoming the barriers to reform. The starting point is...

It is widely accepted that the costs of under-pricing energy are large, whether in advanced or developing countries. This paper explores how large these costs can be by focussing on the size of the external effects that energy subsidies in particular generate in two important sectors –...

This book aims to promote an understanding of the origins and dynamics of the software industry in a number of key emerging markets – Brazil, China, India and Israel, and to establish what experiences, if any, are potentially replicable in other prevailing markets. In-depth interviews with...

Transition has involved major job destruction and creation. This paper examines the skill content of these changes using a detailed three country firm survey. It shows that transition has exerted a strong bias against unskilled labour that has lost employment disproportionately. The skill...