Analysis using firm-level data for a sample of 33,302 firms in 53 developing countries shows that women's employment among private firms is significantly higher in countries that mandate paternity leave versus those that do not. A conservative estimate suggests an increase of 6.8 percentage...

A new dataset of 1,948 retail stores in India compiled by the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys shows that 27 percent of the stores report labor regulations as a problem for their business. Using these data we analyze the effect of labor regulation on employment at the store level. We find that...

A recent survey of 1,948 retail stores in India conducted by the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys shows that 19 percent of the stores use computers for their business. In some states like Kerala, computer use is as high as 40 percent. Using this data the author finds labor regulation as an...

It is argued that compared with large countries, small countries rely more on trade and therefore they are more likely to adopt liberal trading policies. The present paper extends this idea beyond the conventional trade openness measures by analyzing the relationship between country size and the...

Repeated attempts at uncovering the relevance of country size for various economic factors have produced discouraging results. The present paper sheds new light on the relevance of country size using micro or firm-level data on firms' experience with the quality of tax administration, an...

This paper analyzes the relationship between the number of documents required to export and import and the time it takes to complete all procedures to trade. It shows that an increase in the number of documents required for export and import tends to increase the time cost of shipments. However,...