This paper offers guidance to perplexed policymakers on how to draw practical lessons from the large and often confusing literature on the business climate and its role in economic development. We use the analogy of a doctor treating a patient, who must draw together information from the...

This Paper uses a survey of 3,300 firms in 25 transition countries to shed light on the factors that influence restructuring by firms and their subsequent performance as measured by growth in sales and in sales per employee over a three-year period. We begin by surveying what a decade of...

Two decades after the end of central planning, we investigate the extent to which the advantages bequeathed by planning in terms of high investment in physical infrastructure and human capital compensated for the costs in allocative inefficiency and weak incentives for innovation. We assemble...

This paper examines the relationship between firm performance and growth and the business environment in the countries of the South Asia Region - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka - using firm-level data from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys. The...

Professor Elhauge’s arguments are used to motivate a vision of the priorities for antitrust enforcement that may be seriously misguided if his optimism is unfounded.

A major theme in accounts of the transitional recession and delayed convergence in post-communist economies is the role of institutions. Yet via unification, East Germany had immediate access to credible, high quality institutions. This paper argues that success in a capitalist economy depends...