Since the first quarter of 2020, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in developing countries have faced significant hardship due to the economic shocks related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Questions arise, however, regarding the extent to which MSMEs' hardship has varied between...

This study offers a comprehensive picture of the rural economy in Bangladesh during the first three months of the lockdown period in comparison with the pre-COVID-19 situation. Using a nationally representative sample (of 2,312 rural households from 62 villages in 56 districts) known as the...

Soon after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments began extending financial and other forms of support to micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and their workers because smaller firms are more vulnerable to negative shocks to their supply chain, labor supply, and final...

While village industries are known to play an important role in the development of rural areas in developing countries, little is known about village industries in transition economies. This paper inquires into the transformation process of a village industry in northern Vietnam from a...

The leather-shoe industry in Ethiopia is thriving, and in the early 2000s it managed to recover the domestic market which had once been swept by imported Chinese shoes. Using primary enterprise-level data, this paper finds that the industry has been growing not only because of a number of new...

While village industries are known to have high potential to grow, their growth process has seldom been analysed. This study explores the development process of a rapidly growing village-based garment cluster in northern Vietnam. We found that both the human capital and social capital (measured...

This article examines the changing roles of human capital in the process of the formation of industrial clusters, changes in marketing channels, and the relocation of the industrial base to less developed areas and abroad, based on a case study of a garment cluster in postwar Japan. We found,...