Egypt

When Bulldozers Loom: Informal Property Rights and Marketing Practice Innovation Among Emerging Market Micro-Entrepreneurs

Micro-entrepreneurs represent the most common type of business in the world, and marketing is a primary means by which they earn their livelihoods.

Journal Article
1 Dec 2022

Big Loans to Small Businesses: Predicting Winners and Losers in an Entrepreneurial Lending Experiment

We experimentally study the impact of substantially larger enterprise loans in Egypt.

Working Paper
1 May 2022

Distinguishing Constraints on Financial Inclusion and Their Impact on GDP, TFP, and Inequality

A general equilibrium model featuring multiple realistic sources of financial frictions is developed to study how different constraints interact in equilibrium.

Journal Article
1 Jan 2021

Measuring Productivity: Lessons from Tailored Surveys and Productivity Benchmarking

Atkin et al. use tailored surveys and benchmarking in the flat-weave rug industry to better understand the shortcomings of standard productivity measures. Quantity-based productivity (TFPQ) performs poorly because of variation in product specifications across firms.

Journal Article
1 May 2019

Exporting and Firm Performance: Evidence from a Randomised Trial

Atkin, Khandelwal and Osman (2017) conduct in this paper, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, a randomized experiment that generates exogenous variation in the access to foreign markets for rug producers in Egypt.

Journal Article
1 May 2017

Why do Some Micro-entrepreneurs do Better than Others? The Role of Innovation in Marketing Practices in Driving Performance (Stage Two)

This project aims to develop a research programme that investigates the role of innovation in micro-enterprises’ marketing practices in driving performance.

Research Project
22 Dec 2016

Differentiation, Property Rights, and Performance Among Micro-entrepreneurs

In contexts where ownership as a mode of access to productive assets is limited, research shows that leasing has a strong positive impact on micro-entrepreneur performance and differentiation from competitors.

Research Note
10 Apr 2015

The Impact of Exporting: Evidence from a Randomised Trial

This project conducts a randomised field experiment in Egypt to study the channels through which export market access drives economic growth and reduces poverty.

Research Note
20 Aug 2014

Why do Some Micro-entrepreneurs do Better than Others? The Role of Innovation in Marketing Practices in Driving Performance (Stage One)

Through a field experiment on micro food retailers in Cairo, the research team investigates the importance of innovation in marketing practices for scaling and improving businesses.

Research Project
25 Jun 2014

The Impact of Exporting: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment

By analyzing small-scale enterprises in Egypt's carpet industry, this project disentangles causal effects of exporting on productivity and welfare measures, as well as analyzes the firm-specific factors that contribute to export success.

Research Project
1 May 2012