This paper develops a model of costly firm creation in an economy with weak institutions, costly business environment as well as skill gaps where one of the equilibrium outcomes is a low-productivity trap. The paper tests the implications of the model using a cross-sectional dataset including...

A common concern with efforts to directly help some small businesses to grow is that their growth comes at the expense of their unassisted competitors. We test this possibility using a two-stage randomized experiment in Kenya which randomizes business training at the market level, and then...

Many entrepreneurs proclaim proudly to have learned from the School of Hard Knocks rather than business schools. These claims challenge the social value of investments in entrepreneurship education and training. Yet, there is little empirical evidence of the effect of earlier life challenges on...

This paper exploits a welfare programme in Brazil to investigate the role of financial constraints, in opposition to general equilibrium mechanisms, in explaining entrepreneurship. A method for decomposing its impact into direct and indirect effects is presented. Instead of requiring two-level...

Women entrepreneurs have proved to be equi-potential with their men counterparts in business expertise and are emerging as smart and dynamic entrepreneurs. A strong desire to do something positive is an inbuilt quality of entrepreneurial women, who is capable of contributing values in both...

I develop a dynamic model of forward-looking entrepreneurs, who decide whether to operate in the formal economy or informal economy and choose how much to invest in their businesses, taking government policy as given. The government has access to two policy tools: taxes on formal business...

We advance research on human capital and entrepreneurial entry and posit that, in order to generate value, social entrepreneurship requires different configurations of human capital than commercial entrepreneurship. We develop a multilevel framework to analyse the commonalities and differences...

This paper argues that the effect of corruption on competition is dependent on the institutional environment. When institutions are relatively efficient, observed corruption is likely to be associated with relatively less competition. Conversely, in areas with low quality institutions (e.g.,...

Few empirical studies have focused on the interrelationship among ethnicity, religion, caste and female entrepreneurship in India. The latest nationwide census of small enterprises allows us to examine how the socio-cultural status of the female entrepreneurs affects firm performance at...