Business training programs are a popular policy option to try to improve the performance of enterprises around the world. The last few years have seen rapid growth in the number of evaluations of these programs in developing countries. We undertake a critical review of these studies with the...

Using a novel way to identify relationship and transaction banks, we study how banks’ lending techniques affect funding to SMEs over the business cycle. For 21 countries we link the lending techniques that banks use in the direct vicinity of firms to these firms’ credit constraints at two...

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether return migrants are more likely to become entrepreneurs than non-migrants. We develop a theoretical search model that puts forward the trade off faced by returnees since overseas migration provides an opportunity for human and physical capital...

We survey the empirical literature analysing the process of enterprise restructuring in transition economies. The survey provides new insights into the relative effectiveness of different reform policies, and into how this effectiveness varies across regions. We study the effects of...

This paper provides estimates of the long-term effects on height and health of a large income shock experienced in early childhood. Phylloxera, an insect that attacks the roots of grape vines, destroyed 40% of French vineyards between 1863 and 1890, causing major income losses among wine growing...

This paper analyzes the effects of a potential spillover on technology transfer of a multinational enterprise and on the host country policy. In particular, we examine how both parties’ incentives can be controlled through the ownership structure in an international joint venture. In contrast...

We develop and estimate a model of dynamic interactions where commitment is limited and contracts are incomplete to explain the patterns of income and consumption growth in village economies of less developed countries. Households can insure through both formal contracts and informal agreements,...

The paper mainly addresses three questions: 1) do workers tend to be employed by employers of the same ethnic group; 2) what is the structure of the equilibrium wage contract; and 3) do more ethnically homogeneous labour markets tend to have different labour contracts than more ethnically...

This Paper examines the effects of two faces of R&D (innovation and development of absorptive or learning capacity) and technology spillovers from FDI (foreign direct investment) on a firm’s productivity growth. Using firm-level panel data on Czech manufacturing firms between 1995 and 1998, I...

We use enterprise data to analyse and contrast the determinants of enterprise performance in China and Russia. We find that in China, enterprise growth and efficiency is associated with rapid increases in factor inputs, but not correlated with ownership or institutional factors. However, in...