The differences in financial development across Indian states, while seeming substantial, have a minor effect on firm lifecycle and growth. These results hold controlling for differences in labor regulations across states, capital intensity, and for firms born before and after the major reforms....

This paper investigates the contribution of small firms to employment, job creation, and growth in developing countries. While small firms (20 employees) have the smallest share of aggregate employment, the SME sector's (100 employees) contribution is comparable to that of large firms. Small...

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...

The authors investigate whether firms'access to external financing, to fund growth differs between market-based, and bank-based financial systems. Using firm-level data for forty countries, they compute the proportion of firms in each country that relies on external finance, and examine how that...

The authors explore the relationship between financial structure - the degree to which a financial system is market- or bank-based - and economicdevelopment. They use three methodologies: 1) The cross-country approach uses cross-country data to assess whether economies grow faster with market-...

The authors examine the factors affecting the transition to self-employment in Bosnia and Herzegovina, using the World Bank Living Standard Measurement Survey panel household survey for the years 2001-2004. In the beginning of the sample, the country changed its legal framework, with the primary...

The authors explore how a multivariate logit empirical model of banking crisis probabilities can be used to monitor fragility in the banking sector. The proposed approach relies on readily available data, and the fragility assessment has a clear interpretation based on in-sample statistics....

In the 1980s and 1990s several countries experienced banking crises. The authors try to identify features of the economic environment that tend to breed problems in the banking sector. They do so by economically estimating the probability of a systemic crisis, applying a multivariate logic model...

The authors examine the impact of bank supervision on the financing obstacles faced by almost 5,000 corporations across 49 countries. They find that firms in countries with strong official supervisory agencies that directly monitor banks tend to face greater financing obstacles. Moreover,...

The authors assess three established theories about the historical determinants of financial development. They also propose an augmented version of one of these theories. The law and finance view, stresses that different legal traditions emphasize, to differing degrees, the rights of individual...