This paper explores the relationship between the regional business environment, lagging regions, and firm performance in four European countries: Italy, Poland, Romania, and Spain. It combines firm-level data from Orbis measuring sales, employment, productivity, and profitability, with...

As an instrument of trade and investment policy, special economic zones have played a catalytic role in processes of industrialization, diversification, and trade integration in many countries, particularly in East Asia. However, in the African context, anecdotal evidence suggests the experience...

Using a cross-section of more than 40,000 manufacturing and services firms in 79 developing countries from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys Database, this paper assesses how firm location determines the likelihood and extent of exporting in developing countries. Descriptive statistics confirm...

Using a cross-section of more than 25,000 domestic manufacturing firms in 78 low and middle-income countries from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys, this paper assesses how mediating factors influence intra-industry productivity spillovers to domestic firms from foreign direct investment. It...

As the World Bank's 2012 Golden Growth report emphasized, the European Union, since its founding, has been a 'convergence machine,' generating wealth and a higher quality of life for the poorest in the 28 EU member states. More recently, the Growing United report highlighted that while the...

The paper is structured in six further sections following this introduction. Section two develops a conceptual framework, and reviews the literature on the relationship between trade integration and labor market outcomes. Section three outlines the empirical framework and data used in the...

This Jobs Diagnostic presents the characteristics and constraints of the labor market in Bangladesh, identifies the objectives of the jobs agenda, and proposes a policy framework to progress toward them. This multisectoral diagnostic assesses the relationships between supply- and demand-side...