Working paper available through PEDL. Published article available here.
Abstract
Entrepreneurs in developing countries report that unreliable electricity imposes a serious constraint, yet little evidence exists on how blackouts impact the micro-firms that account for the majority of employment. Hardy and McCasland (2019) estimate the effects of outages on small firms using original firm-level panel data and finds evidence of differential effects by firm size. Firms without employees experience large reductions in revenues and profits. Outages have no measurable effect on the output of firms with employees, where worker hours increase, weekly wages paid decrease, and the analysis fails to reject the null hypothesis that blackouts have no effect on (average firm-level) worker hourly wages.
In response to the Covid-19 crisis, 186 countries implemented direct cash transfers to households, and 181 introduced in-kind programs that lowered the cost of utilities such as electricity, water, transport, and mobile money.
Organizational and managerial structure plays an important role in the productivity difference among firms. However, studies that assessed the quality of firm management and its link with their performance are still scanty.
Research suggests that partisanship and social media usage correlate with belief in COVID-19 misinformation, and that misinformation shapes citizens’ willingness to get vaccinated.
This paper examines the effect of the extreme drought, which is caused by El Niño on firms’ performance in food and beverage manufacturing sector in Ethiopia.
Many small businesses in low-income countries hire employees from their kinship networks. This fact is often attributed to hiring from the kinship network reducing contracting frictions or informational asymmetries.
Organizational and managerial structure plays an important role in the productivity difference among firms. However, studies that assessed the quality of firm management and its link with their performance are still scanty.
Firm location decisions are one of the most important decisions managers make, optimizing factors such as proximity to customers, suppliers, and useful information.