Using a novel modeling approach, and cross-country firm level data for the textiles industry, we examine the impact of institutional quality on firm performance. Our methodology allows us to estimate the marginal impact of institutional quality on productivity of each firm. Our results bring...

The stylized literature on foreign direct investment suggests that developing countries should invest in the human capital of their labour force in order to attract foreign direct investment. However, if educational quality in developing country is uncertain such that formal education is a noisy...

We use the stochastic frontier approach to estimate the impact of firm characteristics on investment decisions of Indian firms during the 1997-2006 period. The use of the stochastic frontier approach allows us to define the (unobserved) optimum investment that is consistent with a firm's...

Our analysis of a rich representative household survey for Malawi, where patrilineal and matrilineal institutions coexist, suggests that (a) in matrilineal societies the likelihood of cash crop cultivation by a household increases with the extent of land owned (or de facto controlled) by males,...

It has long been argued that private ownership of firms leads to better firm performance. However, theory as well as empirical evidence suggest that factors like agency problems may not allow privately owned firms to operate more efficiently or perform better that state owned firms. At the same...

Using firm-level data from Bulgaria and Romania, this paper addresses a lacuna in the transition literature, namely, the link of firm-level employment turnover with firm-level growth in labour productivity. The results suggest that while net job creation at the firm level was affected by...

Using Bulgarian Integrated Household Surveys for 1995, 1997 and 2001 this paper explores determinants of labor force status – not working, public sector employment, private sector employment and self-employment – and earnings for each of the three employment sectors. We find that while...

Most papers on banking focus on profitability and cost efficiency as measures of performance. In doing so, these papers ignore the fact that, unlike in the manufacturing and services sector industries, the long term viability of a bank depends more on its ability to assess credit worthiness of...

Productivity growth has long been associated with, among others, contestability of markets which, in turn, is dependent on the ease with which potential competitors to the incumbent firms can enter the product market. There is a growing consensus that in emerging markets regulatory and...

The impact of expiration of derivatives contracts on the underlying cash market – on trading volumes, returns and volatility of returns – has been studied in various contexts. We use an AR-GARCH model to analyse the impact of expiration of derivatives contracts on the cash market at the...