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The World Bank Group conducted face-to-face interviews with top managers and business owners of 373 enterprises in Cambodia from February 2016 through June 2016. The Enterprise Survey (ES) sample is representative of Cambodia's formal private sector. The ES covers several aspects of business environment along with measures of firm performance. The main highlights from the survey are: firms in Cambodia experienced sluggish annual sales growth but performed well in employment growth; investment financing from banks has deteriorated and is lower than in comparator economies; firms face high levels of corruption; electricity provision in Cambodia has become more reliable since 2013; and firms consider informal competitors as the biggest business environment obstacle.

Business Environment --- Business in Development --- Corporate Governance and Corruption --- Corruption --- Electricity --- Informal Sector --- Private Sector Development --- Private Sector Economics

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Management has a large effect on the productivity of large firms. But does management matter in micro and small firms, where the majority of the labor force in developing countries works? This study developed 26 questions that measure business practices in marketing, stock-keeping, record-keeping, and financial planning. These questions have been administered in surveys in Bangladesh, Chile, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka. This paper shows that variation in business practices explains as much of the variation in outcomes-sales, profits, and labor productivity and total factor productivity-in microenterprises as in larger enterprises. Panel data from three countries indicate that better business practices predict higher survival rates and faster sales growth. The effect of business practices is robust to including many measures of the owner's human capital. The analysis finds that owners with higher human capital, children of entrepreneurs, and firms with employees employ better business practices. Competition has less robust effects.

Business environment --- Business in development --- Business practices --- Competitiveness and competition policy --- E-Business --- Emerging markets --- Management --- Private sector development --- Productivity --- Small enterprises

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Different views have been put forward to explain why most firms in developing countries operate informally. One view argues that informal-business owners are entrepreneurs who do not register their firm because the regulation process is too complex. Another argues that informal-business owners are people trying to make a living while searching for a wage job. This paper contributes to recent literature that argues that both factors are at work. The author uses discriminant analysis to separate informal business owners into two groups: those with personal characteristics similar to wage workers, and those with traits similar to formal-business owners. The paper then examines how the two groups were affected by a business registration reform in Mexico. Informal-business owners from the second group were more likely to register their business after the reform. By contrast, informal-business owners from the first group were less likely to register but more likely to become wage workers after the reform. This is consistent with the finding in Bruhn (2008 and 2011) that the reform led to job creation. It also explains why the earlier papers find that the reform didn?t affect the number of new registrations by all informal business owners.

Access to Finance --- Business Environment --- Business in Development --- Business registration reform --- Competitiveness and Competition Policy --- E-Business --- Entrepreneurship --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Informal sector --- Private Sector Development

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This paper identifies the relative importance of human and physical capital for entrepreneurship. A subset of rural microfinance clients were offered eight full time days of business training and the opportunity to participate in a loan lottery of up to Rs. 100,000 (USD 1,700), about seven times the average loan size. The study finds that business training increased business knowledge, reduced business failure, improved business practices and increased household expenditures by about USD 40 per year. It also improved financial and labor allocation decisions. These effects are concentrated among male clients, however. Women improve business knowledge but show no improvements in other outcomes. A cost-benefit analysis suggests that business training was not cost-effective for the microfinance institution, despite having a positive impact on clients. This may explain why so few microfinance institutions offer training. Access to the larger loan, in contrast, had little effect, indicating that existing loan size limits may already meet the demand for credit for these clients.

Access to Finance --- Business Environment --- Business in Development --- Business Training --- Competitiveness and Competition Policy --- Credit Constraints --- E-Business --- Entrepreneurship --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Microfinance --- Private Sector Development

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Female entrepreneurship is low in many developing economies partly because of constraints on women's time and mobility, which are often reinforced by social norms. This paper analyzes a marketing experiment designed to encourage women to adopt a new microcredit product. A brochure with the same content but two different covers was randomly distributed among male and female borrowing groups. One cover featured five businesses run by men, while the other showed identical businesses run by women. Men and women responded to psychological cues. Among men who were not business owners, had lower measured ability and whose wives were less educated, the responses to the female brochure were more negative, as did female business owners with low autonomy within the household. Women with relatively high levels of autonomy had a similar negative response to the male brochure, while there was no effect on female business owners with autonomy. Overall, these results suggest that women's response to psychological cues, such as positive role models, may be affected by their level of autonomy at home, and more intensive interventions may be required for more disadvantaged women.

Access to Finance --- Banks & Banking Reform --- Business in Development --- Competitiveness and Competition Policy --- Credit Constraints --- Debt Markets --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Information --- Microfinance --- Private Sector Development