The World Bank has increasingly focused on firm-level surveys to build the data foundation needed for accurate policy analysis in developing and transition economies. The authors take stock of some recent Bank surveys, and discuss how to improve their results. Lessons on data issues, and...

March 2000 - How to make firm-level surveys more consistent, yielding data more relevant to policy analysis. The World Bank has increasingly focused on firm-level surveys to build the data foundation needed for accurate policy analysis in developing and transition economies. Recanatini,...

Many recent studies have looked at the macroeconomic, cultural and institutional determinants of corruption at the cross-national level. This study complements these existing cross-country studies by focusing on firm-level evidence of microeconomic factors affecting bribes paid in a single...

Many recent studies have looked at the macroeconomic, cultural and institutional determinants of corruption at the cross-national level. This study complements these existing cross-country studies by focusing on firm-level evidence of microeconomic factors affecting bribes paid in a single...

The serious implications of privatizing state-owned enterprises for politicians, managers, and investors make such decisions highly contingent on firm characteristics and past performance, complicating the identification of the privatization effects. A unique opportunity for this identification...

A void in the literature on the business environment is how it evolves over time. Focusing on China during its crucial two decades of transition (from the early 1990s to the early 2010s), this paper documents how the country's business environment and the characteristics of entrepreneurs...