The Heterogeneous Growth Effects of the Business Environment : Firm-Level Evidence for a Global Sample of Cities

Reyes, Jose Daniel ; Roberts, Mark ; Xu, Lixin Colin

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ECONOMIC GROWTH;    BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT;    PRODUCTIVITY;    EMPLOYMENT;    LABOR POLICY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8114
RP-ID  :  WPS8114

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Using firm-level data covering 709cities in 128 countries, this paper examines the role of acomprehensive list of business environment variables at thesubnational level in explaining firm employment andproductivity growth. The analysis finds basic protection,access to finance and infrastructure, and the existence of astrong agglomeration environment to be critically important.By contrast, human capital and a list of refined businessenvironment variables related to labor regulations, tax, andland access are found to be relatively unimportant. Theanalysis also finds that the effects of the businessenvironment vary according to firm size, age, sectoraffiliation, and the host country's level ofdevelopment. The research suggests that it pays to becomprehensive about the business environment and thatattention to heterogeneity is important.