A recent, comprehensive database is used to investigate the link between inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and innovation activity in China. The results of the analysis suggest that private and collectively owned firms with foreign capital participation and those with good access to...

Recent data compilations show that many poor and nonpoor people in many developing countries face a high degree of financial exclusion and high barriers in access to finance. Theory and empirical evidence point to the critical role that improved access to finance has in promoting growth and...

Small-scale entrepreneurs typically cite access to finance as the most important constraint to growth. Recent randomized experiments have shown the return to capital to be very high for the average microenterprise in Sri Lanka. An intervention was designed to improve access to credit among these...

This article reviews the literature on the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic development and introduces four symposium articles. A common thread is that information asymmetries are important determinants of access to finance in young entrepreneurial firms. Policy recommendations...

In response to the problems of high coordination costs among the poor, efforts are underway in many countries to organize the poor through “self-help groups” (SHGs)–membership-based organizations that aim to promote social cohesion through a mixture of education, access to finance, and...

Using multi-year, firm-level surveys for 53 countries, this paper explores the impact of bank competition on firms' access to finance. We find that low competition, as measured by high values on the Lerner index or Boone indicator, diminishes firms' access to finance. In addition, the impact of...