This paper uses the adoption and invention of the spinning jenny as a test case to understand why the industrial revolution occurred in Britain in the eighteenth century rather than in France or India.  It is shown that wages were much higher relative to capital prices in Britain than in other...

The commercial value of basic knowledge depends on the arrival of follow-up developments mostly from outside the boundaries of the inventing firm. Private returns would depend on the extent the inventing firm internalizes these follow-up developments. Such internalization is less likely to occur...

It is shown that spillovers can enhance private returns to innovation if they feed back into the dynamic research of the original inventor (Internalized spillovers), but will always reduce private returns, if the original inventor does not benefit from the advancements other inventors build into...

This book presents qualitative and quantitative analyses on Bolivia's informal sector, the reasons why firms are informal, and the impact of normalization on their profitability. The analysis finds that the impact of tax registration on profitability depends on firm size and the ability to issue...

Tenth in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 185 economies, Doing Business 2013 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit,...

Eleventh in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 189 economies, Doing Business 2014 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity including; starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting...

"The authors use firm-level survey data on 998 small and medium enterprises registered for tax in South Africa regarding tax compliance costs to investigate the use of outsourcing to complete tax compliance tasks. Overall, about 43 percent of the enterprises do all their tax compliance work...

"Innovation is key to technology adoption and creation, and to explaining the vast differences in productivity across and within countries. Despite the central role of the entrepreneur in the innovation process, data limitations have restricted standard analysis of the determinants of innovation...

"This paper studies the factors banks perceive as drivers and obstacles to financing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), focusing on the role of competition and the institutional framework. Using a survey of banks in Argentina and Chile, the paper shows that, despite alleged differences in the...