Small firms are an important source of income for the poor in developing countries, and the target of many interventions designed to help them grow. But there is no systematic information on the failure or death of such firms. The paper puts together 16 panel surveys from 12 different developing...

Small firms are an important source of income for the poor in developing countries, and the target of many interventions designed to help them grow. But there is no systematic information on the failure or death of such firms. The paper puts together 16 panel surveys from 12 different developing...

Small firms are an important source of income for the poor in developing countries, and the target of many interventions designed to help them grow. But there is no systematic information on the failure or death of such firms. The paper puts together 16 panel surveys from 12 different developing...

Firm productivity is low in African countries, prompting governments to try a number of active policies to improve it. Yet despite the millions of dollars spent on these policies, we are far from a situation where we know whether many of them are yielding the desired payoffs. This paper...

Business training programs are a popular policy option to try to improve the performance of enterprises around the world. The last few years have seen rapid growth in the number of evaluations of these programs in developing countries. This paper undertakes a critical review of these studies...