Comparing Apples with....Apples : How to Make (More) Sense of Subjective Rankings of Constraints to Business

Hallward-Driemeier, Mary ; Aterido, Reyes

关键词: ACCESS TO BANK;    ACCESS TO BANK LOANS;    ACCESS TO FINANCE;    BANK LOANS;    BANKS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5054
RP-ID  :  WPS5054

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The use of expert or qualitative surveysto rank countriesbusiness investment conditions iswidespread. However, within the economic literature thereare concerns about measurement error and endogeneity basedon characteristics of the respondents, raising questionsabout how well the data reflect the underlying reality theyare trying to measure. This paper examines these concernsusing data from 79,000 firms in 105 countries. The findingsshow that first, qualitative rankings correlate well withquantitative measures of the business environment, usingboth quantitative measures from within the survey and fromexternal sources.Second, there are systematic variationsin perceptions based on firm characteristics - focusing inparticular on size and growth performance. However, it isnot that an optimistic view of the business environment issimply the expression of a firm s own performance. Rather,firm size and performance affect the relative importance ofcertain constraints, particularly in areas such as finance,time with officials/inspectors, corruption, and access toreliable electricity. The results also show that much of thevariation in subjective responses by firm types is largelydue to differences in the objective conditions across firmtypes. There is little evidence that size and performancehave non-linear effects in how constraining a givenobjective condition is reported to be. Overall, concernsabout endogeneity remain in using business environmentindicators to explain firm performance, but this stemsprimarily from the fact that who you are and how well youare doing can affect the conditions you face rather thanwhether the indicator used is qualitative or quantitative.