The Firms Speak: What the World Business Environment Survey Tells Us about Constraints on Private Sector Development

Daniel Kaufmann, Geeta Batra and Andrew H. W. Stone

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This chapter summarizes the salient results of the World Business Environment Survey (WBES). It shows that important dimensions of the climate for business operation and investment can be measured, analyzed, and compared across countries, and that governance is key to the business environment and investment climate. The survey findings suggest that key policy, institutional, and governance indicators affect the growth of a firm's sales and investment and the extent to which firms operate in the unofficial economy. Further, the paper provides empirical support for some commonly held notions, while challenging others. It suggests a link between taxation, financing, and corruption on the one hand, and growth and investment on the other, and it highlights the costs to economies where the state is captured by a narrow set of private interests.

JEL-codes: K42 L20 L51 M13 M21 O10 P10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/8213/1/MPRA_paper_8213.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:8213

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().