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This paper develops a novel methodology to construct a harmonized cross-country database of the state's footprint in markets: the Businesses of the State database. The methodology of the database is built on three criteria (i) a harmonized definition of state-owned enterprises, (ii) identification of direct and indirect state ownership linkages at the national and subnational levels across the corporate sector, and (iii) classification of economic activities depending on their efficiency rationale which conceptualize a framework to trace state presence in the corporate sector across economic activities. The database is constructed leveraging different firm-level data sources including the ORBIS Global Database, as the primary data source, which is then complemented with supplementary data sources (EMIS Intelligence, Factiva, Worldscope, Pitchbook, among others) to mitigate ORBIS's data limitations across countries and regions. The Businesses of the State database identifies an unprecedented number of firms with state participation across countries and economic activities, as well as providing novel insights on financial performance, economic performance, and governance of state-owned enterprises. A deep-dive analysis of 36 countries within the Businesses of the State database shows that 69 percent of state-owned enterprises operate in competitive activities (low efficiency-rationale for state participation), 16% are in partially contestable industries (moderate efficiency rationale), and 15 percent are natural monopolies (strong efficiency rationale). Furthermore, this analysis suggests that performance-based productivity of state-owned enterprises (revenue per worker) is negatively correlated with government control variables, such as government shareholding percentage and direct versus indirect government ownership.

Management --- Business enterprise. --- Environmental aspects.

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This paper tests whether structural or firm-specific characteristics contributed more to (labor) productivity growth in the European Union between 2003 and 2008. It combines the Amadeus firm-level data on productivity and firm characteristics with country-level data describing regulatory environments from the World Bank's Doing Business surveys, foreign direct investment data from Eurostat, infrastructure quality assessments from the Global Competitiveness Report, and credit availability from the World Development Indicators. It finds that among the 12 newest members of the European Union, country characteristics are most important for firm productivity growth, particularly the stock of inward foreign direct investment and the availability of credit. By contrast, among the more developed 15 elder European Union member countries, firm-level characteristics, such as industry, size, and international affiliation, are most important for growth. The quality of the regulatory environment, measured by Doing Business indicators, is importantly correlated with productivity growth in all cases. This finding suggests that European Union nations can realize significant benefits from improving regulations and encouraging inward and outward foreign direct investment.

Banks & Banking Reform --- Doing Business --- E-Business --- Economic Theory & Research --- Environmental Economics & Policies --- European Union. --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Firm characteristics --- Firm performance --- Foreign direct investment --- Global value chains --- Microfinance --- Private Sector Development --- Productivity --- Regulation