Markets

Bandits or States? Armed Groups Extraction Strategies and the Economy: Evidence from Eastern Congo

This study uses data on modern-day Eastern Congo to explore whether returns to taxation of resources can explain the establishment of protection, taxation, and dispute resolution institutions.

Research Project
21 Jun 2014

Contractual Structure, Borrower Selection, and Hypothetical Loan Demand: Survey Evidence from Uganda

Using survey data on micro and small enterprises in Uganda, this study investigates the phenomenon of ‘adverse selection’ in credit markets – i.e.

Research Note
17 Jun 2014

Exploring Dynamics in South African Firms

This project aims to analyze job creation and destruction in private enterprises in South Africa since 2005, and also explores electronic archives to find historic data on firm dynamics from the 1960s onwards, providing fascinating insights into job creation in the face of massive unemployment.

Research Project
9 Jun 2014

15th Call for ERG Proposals, Deadline: 31 May 2014 - CLOSED

The 15th Round of the Exploratory Research Grants under the PEDL initiative is now closed. Proposals for the 15th call must have been submitted by 5pm GMT on May 31st, 2014.

News
22 May 2014

High Interest Rates and Low Bank Credit to MSMEs in Zambia: Do Switching Costs matter?

Using data collected from a sample of small firms in urban Zambia, this project investigates the existence of switching costs among Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) when borrowing from commercial banks, and finds no evidence of MSMEs getting ‘locked in’ by their main bank.

Research Note
14 May 2014

Price Integration in Low-Income Countries: Market Structure and Retail Price-Setting Behaviour in Lesotho

This research note by Mamello Nchake and Lawrence Edwards (both University of Cape Town) summarizes the authors' stylised findings on price-setting behaviour among retail outlets in Lesotho using disaggregated product price data.

Research Note
2 May 2014

2nd Special Call for PhD Students, Deadline: 19 May 2014 - CLOSED

The 2nd Special Call for Exploratory Research Grant proposals from PhD students under the PEDL initiative is now closed. Proposals for the 2nd Special Call must have been submitted by May 19th, 2014.

News
20 Mar 2014

Taxes, Misallocations, and Productivity

Misallocations of factors of production have the potential to explain a large portion of cross-country differences in productivity (Hsieh and Klenow, 2009). Yet, empirical evidence relating actual differences in firms' productivity to observable policy distortions has been scarce.

Working Paper
5 Jan 2014

Video interviews from the December 2013 conference on Firms and Development in London

On December 12-13, PEDL hosted a conference on ‘firms and development’ jointly with the IPA SME Initiative.

News
3 Jan 2014

Highways, Firm Productivity, and Allocative Efficiency in India

In this study of a large scale highway upgrade project in India, called the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ), Kerr, Grover and Ghani (2013) find several positive effects on the organized sector for non-nodal districts located in proximity with the GQ vis-à-vis other districts — most notably higher entry

Research Note
3 Jan 2014

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