Innovation

Raising Retail Productivity through Data Pooling: A Mobile Phone App Intervention

The rise of the information economy has highlighted how data may be an input into production (Veldkamp and Chung, forthcoming). Since firms conversely accumulate data through production, large firms may be able to accumulate data more quickly, giving them an advantage. The advantage is especially stark in retail, where a key dimension of productivity is the ability to forecast demand for individual products (Samaniego de la Parra and Shenoy, 2023). Walmart came to dominate U.S.

Research Project
3 Dec 2024

Business incubators and entrepreneurship development in Africa’s innovation systems: a bibliometric review

Business incubators are a useful policy tool for spurring and supporting entrepreneurial businesses, but we know too little about their impact in Africa.

Research Note
16 Mar 2023

Business incubators and entrepreneurship development in Africa’s innovation systems: a bibliometric review

Business incubators are a policy tool for spurring and supporting entrepreneurial businesses. In recent years, many African countries have established many of them.

Working Paper
9 Feb 2023

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

Foreign direct investment and knowledge diffusion in poor locations

We use plant level census data to identify spillovers from FDI in Ethiopia’s manufacturing sector.

Journal Article
1 Sep 2022

Violence and Financial Decisions: Evidence from Mobile Money in Afghanistan

We provide evidence that violence reduces the adoption and use of mobile money in three separate empirical settings in Afghanistan. First, analyzing nationwide mobile money transaction logs, we find that users exposed to violence reduce use of mobile money.

Journal Article
20 Dec 2021

Monitoring in Small Firms: Experimental Evidence from Kenyan Public Transit

This paper was initially published in 2018 under the title 'The Impact of Monitoring Technologies on Contracts and Employee Behavior: Experimental Evidence from Kenya's Transit Industry'.

Working Paper
2 Jul 2021

Fostering Innovation through Empowered Workers - Experimental Evidence from the Bangladeshi Garment Industry

Informational constraints are often a crucial barrier to adoption of innovations in firms. How can firms overcome this barrier and increase upward flows of ideas?

Working Paper
1 May 2021

How Do Managers’ Beliefs about New Technologies Evolve? Informational Interventions and the Adoption of Energy-Efficient Stitching Motors in Bangladesh

This project will examine how managers respond to information about new technologies and how successful they are in updating their beliefs.

Research Project
1 Feb 2021

The Light and the Heat: Productivity Co-Benefits of Energy-Saving Technology

Adhvaryu, Kala and Nyshadham (2020) study the adoption of energy-efficient LED lighting in garment factories around Bangalore, India.

Journal Article
1 Oct 2020

Pages