Businesses of the state (BOS) have regained the public debate in midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as a source of resilience to shocks and a mechanism for technology development and diffusion. However, little is known about the impacts on the economy. This paper uses a novel dataset...

This paper estimates the impact of technology sophistication pre-COVID-19 on the performance of firms during the early stages of the pandemic. It exploits a unique data set covering firms from Brazil, Senegal, and Vietnam, using a treatment effect mediation framework to decompose the results...

This paper examines technology sophistication in establishments. To comprehensively measure technology sophistication, a grid is created that covers key business functions and the technologies used to conduct them. Analyzing data from over 21,000 establishments in 15 countries, the authors find...

This study investigates the impact of competition from informal or unregistered firms on the likelihood of formal manufacturing small and medium-size enterprises obtaining internationally recognized quality certificates. The sample includes 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, one of...

This paper examines empirically the links between adoption of information and communications technology (ICT), defined as usage by firms, innovation, and productivity using firm-level data for a sample of six Sub-Saharan African countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, Kenya,...

While existing evidence in advanced economies suggests a possible role for technological innovation in job creation, its role in developing countries remains largely undocumented. This paper sheds light on the direct impact of technological as well as organizational innovation on firm level...

Little is known about innovation in developing countries, partly because of the lack of comparable and reliable data. Collecting data on firm-level innovation is challenging because of the subjective definition of what determines an innovation, a problem that is exacerbated in developing...

This paper uses comprehensive and comparable firm-level manufacturing census data from four Sub-Saharan African countries to examine the extent, costs, and nature of within-industry resource misallocation across heterogeneous firms. The paper finds evidence of severe misallocation in which...

This paper estimates the number of firms in Africa, considering their size and formal status. It relies on a novel methodology that combines multiple data sources. The results suggest that in 2020, there were 12.7 million firms with more than one worker, and more than 230 million own-account...

Demographic change can be a positive contributor to development at any stage of demographic transition. This paper revisits the literature on the determinants and economic impacts of demographic change, and presents a new global typology that classifies countries into four categories based on...