This empirical paper sheds light on a significant element of the debate of whether infrastructure services have a strong impact on economic development by exploring the impact of innovative road freight services on downstream business users. The paper uses a new and purpose-specific survey of...

Case studies and anecdotal evidence have suggested that uncertainty about policies, laws, and regulations has hampered development of the private sector in many developing countries. The authors present results from a new cross-country survey that provides comparable data on local...

The author examines the effect of legal bonding on ownership and control structures of foreign firms cross-listing in the United States. Contrary to the predictions of corporate governance convergence theories, there is little evidence of convergence-related migration to a dispersed ownership...

The informal microfirm sector is believed to be large, accounting for 20-40 percent of employment in many developing countries. The literature tends to view the sector as the disadvantaged sector of a segmented labor market, as existing to evade government regulations, or as constrained by lack...

Although a small agency, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) has a broad mandate-to promote productive foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into developing countries. The Agency's results in fiscal 2004 were mixed. While the total amount of guarantees issued fell slightly, to...

The analysis of firm-level data collected through parallel international enterprise surveys can reveal important linkages between governance constraints and business growth and investment. The World Business Environment Survey (WBES), an initiative led by the World Bank Group in 1999 and 2000,...

Policy makers in both developed and developing countries want to make cities more competitive, attract entreprepreneurs, boost economic growth, and promote job creation. The authors examine the spatial location of entrepreneurs in India in manufacturing and services sectors, as well as in the...

Based on a comprehensive worldwide firm survey, this paper looks at how the business environment and economic agglomeration affect job creation, holding constant conventional determinants of firm growth, such as firm ownership, size, and age. The analysis finds that economic agglomeration is...

This paper studies the governance structure of state-owned enterprises in the water and electricity sectors of Latin America and the Caribbean. Through a unique dataset, the paper compares 44 leading state companies of the region based on an aggregate measure of corporate governance and six...