A commonly held but untested view is that the use of modern technology such as computers could be endogenous to labor regulations. This paper confirms this view using the Enterprise survey's data on 1948 retail stores in India

A new dataset of 1,948 retail stores in India shows that 27% of the stores find labor regulations as a problem for their business. Using these data, we analyze the effect of labor regulations on employment at the store level. We find that flexible labor regulations have a strong positive effect...

Using data on firm perceptions of how helpful the government is for doing business, we find strong evidence for the theory of legal origins: common law fares better than civil law. Advantages of using firm perceptions are discussed in detail

The present paper contributes to the literature on legal origins by showing that the ease with which information on rules and regulations is available to firms is much better in common law compared with civil law countries

A recent survey of 1,948 retail stores in India conducted by the World Bank's Enterprise surveys shows that 19 per cent of all stores use computers. In the state of Kerala, the figure is as high as 40 per cent. Using this survey, we estimate the effect of computer usage on labour employment. Our...

The authors use a sample of 133 countries to investigate the link between the abundance of natural resources and micro-economic reforms. Previous studies suggest that natural resource abundance gives rise to governments that are less accountable to the public and states that are oligarchic, and...

The authors use a sample of 147 countries to investigate the link between democracy and reforms. Democracy may be conducive to reforms, because politicians have the incentive to embrace growth-enhancing reforms to win elections. By contrast, authoritarian regimes do not have to worry as much...

This paper provides an alternative way of testing the theory of legal origins, one based on a firm's perception of how helpful the government is for doing business. The author argues that an approach based on firm perceptions offers a number of advantages over existing studies. Specifically, the...

Mainstream economics views demographic changes in the structure of households as of little relevance for the behavior of firms or the functioning of markets. The present paper dispels this view by arguing that changes in the number of non-workers could affect the intensity with which consumers...