In recent years, the number of surveys of access to and use of financial services has multiplied, but little is known about whether the data generated are comparable across countries, or within the same country over time. This paper reports results from a randomized experiment in Ghana to test...

This paper compares how results using various methods to construct asset indices match results using per capita expenditures. The analysis shows that inferences about inequalities in education, health care use, fertility, child mortality, as well as labor market outcomes are quite robust to the...

This paper examines the role of firms'government connections, defined by government intervention in the appointments of Chief Executive Officers and the status of state ownership, in determining the severity of financial constraints faced by Chinese firms. In line with the previous literature,...

This paper uses data from a large survey of Chinese firms to investigate whether local government efforts to facilitate market development improve firm efficiency. Both government provision of information about products, markets, and innovation and government assistance in arranging loans are...

Two data sets are used to study how country and firm characteristics affected firms'financial constraints and their likelihood of survival during the early phase of the recent global financial crisis in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, a region that was especially hard hit. The first data source...

In recent years there has been a rapid increase in the presence and growth of greenfield microfinance institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper uses regressions to benchmark those African greenfields relative to other microfinance providers and finds that greenfields grew faster in terms of...

This paper investigates the African financial development and financial inclusion gaps relative to other peer developing countries. The paper uses a set of variables related to financial development and inclusion. It first estimates the gaps between African countries and other developing...

This paper uses cross-country firm-level surveys to gauge access to financial services and the importance of financing constraints for African enterprises. The paper compares access to finance in Africa and other developing regions of the world, within Africa across countries, and across...

Regulation allows microfinance institutions to evolve more fully into banks, particularly for institutions aiming to take deposits. But there are potential trade-offs. Complying with regulation and supervision can be costly. The authors examine the implications for the institutions’...

Foreign bank participation has increased steadily across developing countries since the mid-1990s. This paper documents this trend and surveys the existing literature to explore the drivers and consequences of this phenomenon, paying particular attention to the differences observed across...