Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

Zambia has been implementing market-based financial sector reforms since 1992, and is currently implementing phase II of its Financial Sector Development Plan. There is some evidence that these reforms have improved the efficiency of bank operations and boosted industrial production. There are still concerns, however, that Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have only limited access to bank credit at high cost, and that this has constrained their ability to grow and increase productivity.

This detailed study of the Indian brick industry allows for reliable estimates of firm productivity, disentangling competing explanations of variations in revenue and output across firms such as capital misallocation, market power, and adjustment costs.

Using one treatment to reduce the costs of registration for firms and one to emphasize the legal costs of informality, this project seeks to identify specific policy interventions designed to induce the formalization of firms.

This project examines potential switching costs for borrowers of formal credit and the impact of these costs on the competitiveness of the lending market.

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.

This project begins the initial work into creating a feasible pilot internship program for young Ethiopians, in order to study the impact of training in entrepreneurial skills and improved business networks on the emergence and growth of new firms in developing countries.