This chapter summarizes the salient results of the World Business Environment Survey (WBES). It shows that important dimensions of the climate for business operation and investment can be measured, analyzed, and compared across countries, and that governance is key to the business environment...

Increases in wages and the appreciation of the New Taiwanese dollar since the mid-1980s have significantly altered the environment in which firms operate and survive. In particular, as more countries have liberalized their trade and foreign investment policies, Taiwanese firms have been...

ABSTRACTCHAPTER 1: A Structural Empirical Model of R&D Investment, Firm Heterogeneity, and Industry EvolutionThis paper develops and estimates a structural model of R&D investment and productivity evolution of manufacturing plants in the Korean electric motor industry from 1991 to 1996....

CHAPTER 1: Productivity Improvements and Falling Trade Costs: Boon or Bane?This essay looks at two features of globalization, namely, productivity improvements and falling trade costs, and explores their effect on welfare in a monopolistic competition model with heterogeneous firms and...