We use data from over 20,000 firms in 60 countries to identify constraints on the growth of firms. We interpret managers' answers to survey questions on the extent to which various aspects of their external environment inhibit the performance of their firm as measuring the shadow cost of...

This article introduces lassopack, a suite of programs for regularized regression in Stata. lassopack implements lasso, square-root lasso, elastic net, ridge regression, adaptive lasso and post-estimation OLS. The methods are suitable for the high-dimensional setting where the number of...

This paper uses the BEEPS firm-level data to study the process of convergence of transition countries with developed market economies. The primary focus of the study is on competition and market structure, finance and the structure of lending to firms, and how firms respond to the economic...

This paper uses a "local average treatment effect" (LATE) framework in an attempt to disentangle the separate effects of criminal and noncriminal gun prevalence on violence rates. We first show that a number of previous studies have failed to properly address the problems of endogeneity, proxy...

We introduce the package ddml for Double/Debiased Machine Learning (DDML) in Stata. Estimators of causal parameters for five different econometric models are supported, allowing for flexible estimation of causal effects of endogenous variables in settings with unknown functional forms and/or...

This paper reviews recent empirical evidence on privatisation in developing countries. Particular emphasis is placed on new areas of research such as the distributional impacts of privatisation. Overall, the literature now reflects a more cautious and nuanced evaluation of privatisation. Thus it...

Conventional wisdom depicts corruption as a tax on incumbent firms. This paper challenges this view in two ways. First, by arguing that corruption matters not so much because of the value of the bribe ("tax"), but because of another less studied feature of corruption, namely bribe...

We explore the country-specific institutional characteristics likely to influence an individual's decision to become an entrepreneur. We focus on the size of the government, on freedom from corruption, and on 'market freedom' defined as a cluster of variables related to protection of property...

We analyze theoretically and empirically the impact of the shadow economy on entrepreneurial entry, utilising 1998-2005 individual-level Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data merged with macro level variables. A simple correlation coefficient suggests a positive linear link between the size of...

We conceptualise social entrepreneurship as a source of social capital which, when present in the environment, enhances commercial entrepreneurship. We also argue that social entrepreneurship should be recognised as a second form of Baumol's (1990) productive entrepreneurship and that it will...