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This study evaluates the employment effects of a publicly-run national technical vocational education training program in Brazil that explicitly takes input from firms in determining the location, scale, and skill content of courses offered. Using exogenous course capacity restrictions, the study finds that those completing the course following receipt of a course offer have an 8.6 percent increase in employment over the year following course completion. These effects come from previously unemployed trainees who find employment at non-requesting firms. The demand-driven program's effects are larger and statistically distinguishable from those of a broader and institutionally-similar publicly-administered skills training program run at the same time that did not take input from firms. The study finds that the demand-driven program better aligned skill training with future aggregate occupational employment growth-suggesting the input from firms captured meaningful information about growth in skill demand. Courses offered in occupations that grew more over the year following requests exhibited larger employment effects, explaining the effectiveness of the demand-driven model.

Business Services --- Labor Demand --- Training Programs --- Unemployment --- Vocational Training

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Many small firms lack the finance and marketing skills needed for firm growth. The standard approach in many business support programs is to attempt to train the entrepreneur to develop these skills, through classroom-based training or personalized consulting. However, rather than requiring the entrepreneur to be a jack-of-all-trades, an alternative is to move beyond the boundary of the entrepreneur and link firms to these skills in a marketplace through insourcing workers with functional expertise or outsourcing tasks to professional specialists. A randomized experiment in Nigeria tests the relative effectiveness of these four different approaches to improving business practices. Insourcing and outsourcing both dominate business training; and do at least as well as business consulting at one-half of the cost. Moving beyond the entrepreneurial boundary enables firms to use higher quality digital marketing practices, innovate more, and achieve greater sales and profits growth over a two-year horizon.

Business Development Services --- Business Practice --- Business Services Market --- Business Support --- Enterprise Development and Reform --- Entrepreneurship --- Firm Growth --- Insourcing --- Outsourcing --- Private Sector Development --- Private Sector Economics

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This study connects two important findings in Sub-Saharan Africa. First, digital technologies such as mobile money have become widespread and have increased investment by businesses, especially in East Africa. Second, women-owned business in the region significantly lag their male counterparts in capital investments. Using data for 16 Sub-Saharan African economies, the study connects the two findings by exploring whether mobile money use by women-owned firms increases their investment. The findings indicate that the positive relationship between mobile money use and investment is largely driven by women-owned firms and is statistically insignificant for men-owned firms. Potential channels of these effects are explored. Women-owned firms that use mobile money to transact with suppliers are more likely to invest. Mobile money also seems to facilitate greater provision of customer credit and generally greater demand for more credit by women-owned firms. Such patterns are not observed for men-owned firms.

Access to Finance --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Business Services --- E-Business --- E-Finance and E-Security --- Enterprise Development and Reform --- Female Entrepreneurs --- Female-Owned Business --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Development --- Financial Structures --- Fintech --- Firms --- Gender --- Gender and Economics --- Information and Communication Technologies --- Information and Communication Technology --- Information Technology --- Investment --- Mobile Money --- Private Sector Economics --- Women Entrepreneurs

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This paper analyzes the recent evolution and impact of the global economic crisis on the offshore services industry. Using a global value chains framework, the authors classify the offshore services sector in a comprehensive set of general and industry-specific activities that correspond to different segments and stages in the value-adding process for services. Through an analysis of the impact of the economic crisis on the industry, a small decline in demand was found; however this did not cause any structural changes in the market. The crisis has created two opposing effects: general contraction of demand by existing customers due to the recession; and, at the same time, a substitution effect by which new services are being moved from developed countries to emerging economies in search of cost reduction. The paper concludes that the offshore services industry will continue to offer growth opportunities for developing countries not only among existing market players, but also a range of new countries. The industry has the potential to become an important source for employment and economic growth around the globe.

Business associations --- Business intelligence --- Business models --- Business Process Outsourcing --- Business processes --- Business services --- Communication Technology --- Communities and Human Settlements --- Competitive environment --- Computer Science --- Consulting Services --- Content development --- Data Systems --- Decision makers --- Decision-making --- E-Business --- EGovernment --- Engineering services --- Housing & Human Habitats --- ICT Policy and Strategies --- Industry association --- Information and Communication Technologies --- Knowledge economy --- Private Sector Development --- Public Sector Corruption & Anticorruption Measures --- Public Sector Development --- Third-party providers --- Trade statistics --- Water and Industry --- Water Resources

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In April 2014, the Government of Benin launched the entreprenant status, a simplified and free legal regime offered to small informal businesses to enter the formal economy. This paper presents the short-term results of a randomized impact evaluation testing three different versions of the entreprenant status on business registration decisions, each version including incremental incentives to registration: (i) information on the new legal status and its benefits, (ii) business training, counseling services, and support to open a bank account, (iii) tax mediation services. The study included 3,600 informal businesses operating with a fixed location in Cotonou, Benin, which were randomly allocated between three treatment groups and one control group. One year after the program launch, all versions of the program had significant impact on formalization rates. The impact was 9.1 percentage points in the first treatment group; 13 percentage points in the second group; and 15.8 percentage points in the last group. The program had a higher impact on male business owners, with more education, operating outside Dantokpa Market, in sectors other than trade, and that before being offered the incentives to formalization had characteristics similar to businesses that were already formal. Data from a second follow-up survey, which is expected to take place in March 2016, will explore the impacts on other outcomes, like business performances or access to banking.

Access to bank --- Account --- Accounting --- Administration --- Administrative process --- Advertising --- Artisans --- Bank account --- Bank financing --- Bank loan --- Banking system --- Beneficiaries --- Bookkeeping --- Budget --- Business --- Business activity --- Business entry --- Business environment --- Business facilitation --- Business in development --- Business management --- Business performance --- Business plan --- Business registration --- Business regulation --- Business services --- Business training --- Cash transfers --- Certificate --- Chamber of commerce --- Check --- Collateral --- Commerce --- Commercial bank --- Commercial law --- Communication --- Competitiveness --- Competitiveness and competition policy --- Contact information --- Contract --- Cost --- Customers --- Data --- Database --- Debit card --- Debt markets --- Deposit --- Developing countries --- Direct costs --- Dummy variable --- E-business --- Economic activity --- Electricity --- Enabling environment --- Enterprise development --- Exchange --- Finance --- Finance and financial sector development --- Financial products --- Financial statements --- Firm performance --- Future --- Good --- Human capital --- ID --- Impact evaluation --- Impacts --- Implementation --- Implementing agencies --- Information --- Information banks --- Information services --- Inspection --- Institution --- International bank --- International development --- International finance --- Legal environment --- Levy --- Liability --- License --- Limited liability --- Link --- Loan --- Market --- Medium enterprises --- Microenterprises --- Mobile phone --- Monitoring --- Network --- New markets --- One-stop shop --- Open access --- Option --- Ownership --- Performance --- Phone --- Phone number --- Private sector development --- Productivity --- Profit --- Protocol --- Quality --- Quality of services --- Registration process --- Registration system --- Result --- Returns --- Sales --- Selling --- Share --- Small business --- Tax --- Tax exemption --- Tax forms --- Tax obligations --- Tax rate --- Tax regime --- Tax system --- Technical assistance --- Trade sector --- Trading --- Transparency --- Turnover --- Unfair competition --- Uses --- Web