The last three decades have witnessed an explosion of theoretical work on the organization of firms (Robert Gibbons and John Roberts, 2009). In parallel, there has been a massive increase in access to micro data which has revealed huge dispersions in productivity. For example, within narrow...

The productivity of firms in developing countries appears to be extremely low. Prior work, such as that summarized in James Tybout (2000) and World Bank (2004), has highlighted a set of issues around infrastructure, informality, regulations, trade policies, and human capital that reduce the...

Global potential output growth has been flagging. At 2.5 percent in 2013-17, post-crisis potential growth is 0.5 percentage point below its longer-term average and 0.9 percentage point below its average a decade ago. Compared with a decade ago, potential growth has declined 0.8 percentage point...