Dissecting the Size Distribution of Establishments Across Countries

Manuel Garcia-Santana and Roberto Ramos

Working Papers from CEMFI

Abstract: We present a detailed description of cross-country differences in the size distribution of establishments as measured by Enterprise Surveys of the World Bank (2006-2010). We find that poorer countries tend to have smaller establishments, and hence a higher proportion of employment is allocated to such plants. We also find that, conditional on the level of per capita GDP, there is still a wide variation in the size distribution of establishments. We show that financial frictions and other costs imposed on the business environment can account for a sizeable part of such variation. Additionally, we exploit the richness of the data-set to document cross-sector differences in the size distribution of establishments. We show that establishments in manufacturing and construction tend to be larger on average than in retail and other services.

Keywords: Plant size distribution; enterprise environment. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L11 L53 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-iue
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cmf:wpaper:wp2012_1204

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