To assess the impact of COVID-19 on firms, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation conducted Business Pulse Surveys in several countries, including six in the South Asia region. Analysis focusing on the South Asia region suggests that, first, firms in the South Asia region have...

Most crises have a disproportionately larger negative effect on micro-sized firms. Yet, the heterogeneity of impact within micro-sized firms is lesser known. Using five waves of the World Bank's Business Pulse Survey data, this paper finds that firms with zero to four employees have a much...

With the advent of digital transformation, ICT innovations have also led to a "data revolution" wherein more data is being captured, produced, stored, accessed, analyzed, archived, and reanalyzed, and at an exponential pace. An examination of new data sources, including big data and...