Big Constraints to Small Firms' Growth? Business Environment and Employment Growth across Firms

Using data on more than 56,000 enterprises in 90 countries, this study finds that objective conditions in the business environment vary substantially across firms of different sizes and that there are important nonlinearities in their impact on employment growth. The study focuses on four areas: acc...

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Main Authors: Aterido, Reyes, Hallward-Driemeier, Mary, Pages, Carmen
Format: Journal Article
Language:EN
Published: 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4787
id okr-10986-4787
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-47872021-04-23T14:02:19Z Big Constraints to Small Firms' Growth? Business Environment and Employment Growth across Firms Aterido, Reyes Hallward-Driemeier, Mary Pages, Carmen Capital Budgeting Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies Capacity G310 Financing Policy Financial Risk and Risk Management Capital and Ownership Structure G320 Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope L250 Economic Development: Financial Markets Saving and Capital Investment Corporate Finance and Governance O160 Using data on more than 56,000 enterprises in 90 countries, this study finds that objective conditions in the business environment vary substantially across firms of different sizes and that there are important nonlinearities in their impact on employment growth. The study focuses on four areas: access to finance, business regulations, corruption, and infrastructure. The results, particularly on the impacts of finance and corruption on growth, depend on whether and how the analysis accounts for the possible endogeneity of the business environment. Controlling for endogeneity revises the finding that small firms benefit most from access to finance, particularly for sources of finance associated with investment and growth. The findings are also sensitive to how "small" is defined. Differentiating micro (fewer than 10 employees) from other small firms shows that, while small firms can be disadvantaged in such an environment, micro firms tend to be proportionally less affected by a weak business climate--and, on occasion, it can help them to grow. Overall, allowing different size classifications provides insights into the impact of the business environment that are lost in more aggregate analyses. 2012-03-30T07:29:44Z 2012-03-30T07:29:44Z 2011 Journal Article Economic Development and Cultural Change 00130079 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4787 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language EN
topic Capital Budgeting
Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
Capacity G310
Financing Policy
Financial Risk and Risk Management
Capital and Ownership Structure G320
Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope L250
Economic Development: Financial Markets
Saving and Capital Investment
Corporate Finance and Governance O160
spellingShingle Capital Budgeting
Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
Capacity G310
Financing Policy
Financial Risk and Risk Management
Capital and Ownership Structure G320
Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope L250
Economic Development: Financial Markets
Saving and Capital Investment
Corporate Finance and Governance O160
Aterido, Reyes
Hallward-Driemeier, Mary
Pages, Carmen
Big Constraints to Small Firms' Growth? Business Environment and Employment Growth across Firms
relation http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
description Using data on more than 56,000 enterprises in 90 countries, this study finds that objective conditions in the business environment vary substantially across firms of different sizes and that there are important nonlinearities in their impact on employment growth. The study focuses on four areas: access to finance, business regulations, corruption, and infrastructure. The results, particularly on the impacts of finance and corruption on growth, depend on whether and how the analysis accounts for the possible endogeneity of the business environment. Controlling for endogeneity revises the finding that small firms benefit most from access to finance, particularly for sources of finance associated with investment and growth. The findings are also sensitive to how "small" is defined. Differentiating micro (fewer than 10 employees) from other small firms shows that, while small firms can be disadvantaged in such an environment, micro firms tend to be proportionally less affected by a weak business climate--and, on occasion, it can help them to grow. Overall, allowing different size classifications provides insights into the impact of the business environment that are lost in more aggregate analyses.
format Journal Article
author Aterido, Reyes
Hallward-Driemeier, Mary
Pages, Carmen
author_facet Aterido, Reyes
Hallward-Driemeier, Mary
Pages, Carmen
author_sort Aterido, Reyes
title Big Constraints to Small Firms' Growth? Business Environment and Employment Growth across Firms
title_short Big Constraints to Small Firms' Growth? Business Environment and Employment Growth across Firms
title_full Big Constraints to Small Firms' Growth? Business Environment and Employment Growth across Firms
title_fullStr Big Constraints to Small Firms' Growth? Business Environment and Employment Growth across Firms
title_full_unstemmed Big Constraints to Small Firms' Growth? Business Environment and Employment Growth across Firms
title_sort big constraints to small firms' growth? business environment and employment growth across firms
publishDate 2012
url http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4787
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