Using recent matched employer-employee data from the manufacturing sector in 20 Sub-Saharan African countries, the authors analyze how the supply of skills and legal origin of the country affect the wage setting process. The wage analysis yields three main findings. First, increasing returns to...

The authors use firm-level survey data from the manufacturing sector in 20 Sub-Saharan African countries to explore the links between labor market regulations and net job creation. A first look at firm characteristics, perceptions, and the dynamics of employment at the firm level suggests that...

Regulation is purportedly enacted to serve specific social purposes. In reality, however, it follows a more complex political economy process, where legitimate social goals are mixed with the objectives of particular interest groups. Whatever its justification and objectives, regulation can have...

This paper evaluates the impact of an employment subsidy scheme covering employers' social contribution costs on registered employment in small firms in Turkey. It utilizes a rich, firm-level administrative data set with monthly frequency, which allows for closely following the dynamics of...

The authors use firm-level survey data from the manufacturing sector in 20 Sub-Saharan African countries to explore the links between labor market regulations and net job creation. A first look at firm characteristics, perceptions, and the dynamics of employment at the firm level suggests that...

Using recent matched employer-employee data from the manufacturing sector in 20 Sub-Saharan African countries, the authors analyze how the supply of skills and legal origin of the country affect the wage setting process. The wage analysis yields three main findings. First, increasing returns to...

This paper estimates the impact of informality on firm profits using a new firm-level survey designed specifically for this study. The survey was administered to about 1,200 firms with 50 employees or less in Ecuador's two largest cities, Quito and Guayaquil, plus two main centers of economic...

This paper reviews evidence on how risk affects development outcomes at the household level, in particular among the poor, by providing a categorization of the effects of different types of risk on welfare, assets, human capital, and other outcomes at different points in the life cycle, but also...

In this survey the author assemble recent theoretical and empirical advances in the literature on economic informality, analyzing the causes and costs of informality in developed and developing economies. In accordance with recent evidence, the author discusses the nature and the roots of...

World Bank Group client governments as well as donors often ask about the effects of business entry reforms and the persistence of those effects. Four clear findings emerge from existing research. First, more firms enter the market when registration procedures and costs are cut. Second, a large...