There are large and sustained differences in the economic performance of sub-national regions in most countries. The authors examine the economic structure and productivity in Southern Mexico and compare it with the rest of the country. The authors use firm level data from Mexican manufacturing...

In Vietnam almost a quarter of adults worked in nonfarm household enterprises in 1998. Based on household panel data from the Vietnam Living Standards Surveys of 1993 and 1998, the authors find some evidence that operating an enterprise leads to greater affluence. The data show that nonfarm...

German banks are often criticized, or praised, depending on a person's viewpoint, for owning German industry and for playing an active part in corporate control. The author argues that this misrepresents German banking. First, the number of German firms a bank can own or control, although...

How should countries in transition to market economies handle the losses of large loss-making enterprises? Over the past six years several governments in transition economies have implemented isolation programs that combine features of reorganization under bankruptcy (as in industrial countries)...

This note presents the results of an empirical analysis of firm-level productivity growth in Russia's manufacturing sector during the period 2003-08 using a rich Amadeus database as well as the recent EBRD/World Bank Business Enterprise and Performance surveys (BEEPs). The results show that...

Since the early 1980s, China has begun gradually integrating with the global system. In doing so the country has moved toward its own unique brand of market socialism, which recognizes private ownership, and is adopting market institutions and pursuing industrial change within the framework of...

The main challenge of the transition has been to redefine how the state interacts with firms, but little attention has been paid to the flip side of the relationship : how firms influence the state - especially how they exert influence on, and collude with public officials to extract advantages....

The main focus of the paper is the measurement of the potential for externalities related to foreign direct investment. A series of novel proxies are drawn from the Enterprise Survey database of the World Bank-IFC and tested against hypotheses considered in the foreign direct investment...

Many countries have expressed an interest in the size, performance and motivation of the informal sector, especially where the informal sector provides the livelihood and employment for a critical segment of the population. This essay reviews recent literature, methodologies, and relevant Bank...

Competing theories increasingly support the positive role of social capital in small loan default costs of group lending; at the same time, potential group collusion may increase loan delinquencies. Findings from the available literature are mixed on the role of the various attributes of group...