Although business ownership has implications for income inequality, wealth accumulation and job creation, surprisingly little research explores why Mexican-Americans are less likely to start businesses and why the businesses that they start are less successful on average than non-Latino whites....

Which is the tighter constraint on private sector investment: weak property rights or limited access to external finance? From a survey of new firms in post-communist countries, we find that weak property rights discourage firms from reinvesting their profits, even when bank loans are available....

The lack of credit is often mentioned as one of the major constraints facing small businesses. We use differences in the phasing in of a new lending program designed to serve clients of the largest snack food company in Mexico to identify the impact of credit on outcomes of small retail...

The author examines wage patterns under an incomes policy in Mexico in 1987-94. The policy specified increases in the minimum wage rate, but also guided salary negotiations more generally. The author finds indications of a substantial but largely temporary effect on wage rates, and evidence...

Trading relations in Vietnam's emerging private sector are shaped by two market frictions: the difficulty of locating trading partners and the absence of legal enforcement of contracts. Examining relational contracting, we find that a firm trusts its customer enough to offer credit when the...

Utilizando datos de encuestas mexicanas a microempresas conducidos entre 1992 y 1998 se examina la relación entre la inmigración a USA y las inversiones en microempresas; el uso de trabajo pago e impago, y las ganancias de los microemprendedores Se concluye que las inversiones en microempresas...

Although business ownership has implications for income inequality, wealth accumulation and job creation, surprisingly little research explores why Mexican-Americans are less likely to start businesses and why the businesses that they start are less successful on average than non-Latino whites....

Despite the rising volume of remittances flowing to developing countries, their impact on banking sector breadth and depth in recipient countries has been largely unexplored. The authors examine this topic using municipio-level data on the fraction of households that receive remittances and on...

This paper investigates how start-up firms in Vietnam operate in the face of two significant market frictions: a poorly developed legal system and inadequate market information. We argue that these two market frictions actually offset each other. Poor market information and the consequent...