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...

Many developing countries are unable to provide their industrial sector with reliable power and many enterprises have to contend with electricity that is insufficient and of poor quality. Because of these constraints, firms in developing countries opt for self-generation even though it is widely...

The case studies were developed in order to help Bank task team leaders, and their client country counterparts, design and support effective microfinance components, within social funds. The case studies aim to highlight best practice, as well as challenges for designing, and implementing a...

This paper is a case study of what is recognized as one of the more successful projects in any country in the Europe and Central Asia region, not to mention in the poorest country of the region-Moldova. The ARIA project shows new ways to attack some of the most intractable problems of private...

Too many African state-owned enterprises (SOEs), particularly those in infrastructure sectors, have a long history of poor performance. African governments and donors labored through the 1970s and 1980s to improve SOE performance through “commercialization”——i.e., methods short of...

Control of corporate assets by wealthy families in economies lacking institutional integrity is common. It has negative implications on corporate governance and adverse macroeconomic effects when it extends across a sufficiently large part of the country's corporate sector. The authors consider...