Digital technology offers the potential to lower the costs of delivering business training, and to enable it to be scaled across a wide geographic area. But there are questions about how feasible such training is for entrepreneurs running microenterprises in developing country settings, as well...

Irregular migration from Africa to Europe attracts substantial policy attention. Although international migration can enable people from developing countries to dramatically increase their incomes, the absence of legal channels and the chance of higher incomes can induce people to take part in...

Seeking out business advice, for example through classroom training or consulting, can be a profitable investment. Previous research has found that obtaining business advice through classroom training or one-on-one consulting can increase profits and sales, and firms can recover the cost of...

Innovative start-ups and SMEs in developing and transition countries often have good ideas, but may not have these ideas fine-tuned to the stage where they can attract outside funding. This is the case in the Western Balkans, where there is a perceived lack of investment readiness of innovative...

This study seeks to estimate the effects of access to agent banking on opening and usage of a savings account in urban and peri-urban areas in Senegal. A randomly selected group of individuals were given information about a savings account. Half of the individuals were encouraged to open the...

Between 2008 and 2010, the authors worked with a leading global consulting company to attempt to improve management in Indian textile firms. They conducted a randomized experiment involving 28 plants in 17 firms in the woven cotton fabric industry. These were large firms, with an average of 270...

Economic theory has long suggested the use of monetary incentives to motivate workers. In practice, however, public bureaucracies and nonprofit organizations are driven by a broader mission that often involves multiple operational goals, not all of which may translate equally well into...

Developing country governments seek to reduce pervasive informality of firms for multiple reasons: increasing the tax base, helping firms access formal markets and grow, increasing rule of law, and as a means of obtaining data that can be used for other government functions. The most common...

Government interventions to lower interest rates and expand credit to the rural sector are common in developing countries. Some of these policies, like interest rate subsidies, though well-intentioned, can be distortionary and achieve opposite results. Interventions that tackle constraints that...

Matching grants are one of the most common tools used in private sector development programs in developing countries and have been included in more than 60 World Bank projects totaling over US$1.2 billion, funding over 100,000 micro, small and medium enterprises. The Enterprise Revitalization...