Showing 91 - 100 of 218
This paper studies the impact of a comprehensive financial education program spanning six states, 868 schools, and approximately 20,000 high school students in Brazil through a randomized control trial. The program increased student financial knowledge by a quarter of a standard deviation and...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012973681
Using a randomized evaluation with 432 Mexican small and medium enterprises, this paper shows that access to management consulting led to better firm performance: one-year results show positive effects on return-on-assets and total factor productivity. Owners also had large increases in...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012974217
The majority of microenterprises in most developing countries remain informal despite more than a decade of reforms aimed at making it easier and cheaper for them to formalize. This paper summarizes the evidence on the effects of entry reforms and related policy actions to promote firm...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012974218
This paper explores the empirical relationship between bank competition, bank concentration, and the emergence of credit reporting institutions. The authors find that countries with lower entry barriers into the banking market (that is, a greater threat of competition) are less likely to have a...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012974411
Take-up of voluntary financial education programs is typically extremely low. This paper reports on randomized experiments around a large financial literacy course offered in Mexico City to understand the reasons for low take-up, and to measure the impact of financial education. It documents...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012974421
Many governments have spent much of the past decade trying to extend a helping hand to informal businesses by making it easier and cheaper for them to formalize. Much less effort has been devoted to raising the costs of remaining informal, through increasing enforcement of existing regulations....
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012974428
Efforts to make it easier for firms to register formally are the most common form of business regulatory reform over the past decade. While there is evidence that large reforms have resulted in some increases in registration rates, recent experimental evidence suggests very few informal firms...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012974599
Different views have been put forward to explain why most firms in developing countries operate informally. One view argues that informal-business owners are entrepreneurs who do not register their firm because the regulation process is too complex. Another argues that informal-business owners...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012975443
Identifying the determinants of entrepreneurship is an important research and policy goal, especially in emerging market economies where lack of capital and supporting infrastructure often imposes stringent constraints on business growth. This paper studies the impact of a comprehensive business...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012976035
This paper argues that legislative malapportionment, denoting a discrepancy between the share of legislative seats and the share of population held by electoral districts, serves as a tool for pre-democratic elites to preserve their political power and economic interests after a transition to...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012976304