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  • 1
    UID:
    b3kat_BV049073986
    Format: 1 Online-Ressource (35 Seiten))
    Edition: Online-Ausg
    Content: Is the vast army of the self-employed in low income countries a source of employment generation? This paper uses data from surveys in Sri Lanka to compare the characteristics of own account workers (non-employers) with wage workers and with owners of larger firms. The authors use a rich set of measures of background, ability, and attitudes, including lottery experiments measuring risk attitudes. Consistent with the International Labor Organization's views of the self employed (represented by Tokman), the analysis finds that two-thirds to three-quarters of the own account workers have characteristics which are more like wage workers than larger firm owners. This suggests the majority of the own account workers are unlikely to become employers. Using a two and a half year panel of enterprises, the authors show that the minority of own account workers who are more like larger firm owners are more likely to expand by adding paid employees. The results suggest that finance is not the sole constraint to growth of microenterprises, and provides an explanation for the low rates of growth of enterprises supported by microlending
    Additional Edition: de Mel, Suresh Who Are The Microenterprise Owners?
    Language: English
    URL: Volltext  (URL des Erstveröffentlichers)
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 2
    UID:
    b3kat_BV049074392
    Format: 1 Online-Ressource (37 Seiten))
    Edition: Online-Ausg
    Content: Small and informal firms account for a large share of employment in developing countries. The rapid expansion of microfinance services is based on the belief that these firms have productive investment opportunities and can enjoy high returns to capital if given the opportunity. However, measuring the return to capital is complicated by unobserved factors such as entrepreneurial ability and demand shocks, which are likely to be correlated with capital stock. The authors use a randomized experiment to overcome this problem and to measure the return to capital for the average microenterprise in their sample, regardless of whether they apply for credit. They accomplish this by providing cash and equipment grants to small firms in Sri Lanka, and measuring the increase in profits arising from this exogenous (positive) shock to capital stock. After controlling for possible spillover effects, the authors find the average real return to capital to be 5.7 percent a month, substantially higher than the market interest rate. They then examine the heterogeneity of treatment effects to explore whether missing credit markets or missing insurance markets are the most likely cause of the high returns. Returns are found to vary with entrepreneurial ability and with measures of other sources of cash within the household, but not to vary with risk aversion or uncertainty
    Additional Edition: Woodruff, Christopher Returns To Capital In Microenterprises
    Language: English
    URL: Volltext  (URL des Erstveröffentlichers)
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 3
    UID:
    b3kat_BV049074393
    Format: 1 Online-Ressource (29 Seiten))
    Edition: Online-Ausg
    Content: A large share of the world's poor is self-employed. Accurate measurement of profits from microenterprises is therefore critical for studying poverty and inequality, measuring the returns to education, and evaluating the success of microfinance programs. But a myriad of problems plague the measurement of profits. The authors report on a variety of different experiments conducted to better understand the importance of some of these problems and to draw recommendations for collecting profit data. In particular, they (1) examine how far we can reconcile self-reported profits and reports of revenue minus expenses through more detailed questions; (2) examine recall errors in sales and report on the results of experiments which randomly allocated account books to firms; and (3) ask firms how much firms like theirs underreport sales in surveys like this, and have research assistants observe the firms at random times 15-16 times during a month to provide measures for comparison. The authors conclude that firms underreport revenues by about 30 percent, that account diaries have significant effects on both revenues and expenses but not on profits, and that simply asking profits provides a more accurate measure of firm profits than detailed questions on revenues and expenses
    Additional Edition: Woodruff, Christopher Measuring Microenterprise Profits
    Language: English
    URL: Volltext  (URL des Erstveröffentlichers)
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  • 4
    UID:
    b3kat_BV048269120
    Format: 1 Online-Ressource (60 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Content: The majority of enterprises in many developing countries have no paid workers. This paper reports on a field experiment conducted in Sri Lanka that provided wage subsidies to randomly chosen microenterprises to test whether hiring additional labor would benefit such firms. In the presence of labor market frictions, a short-term subsidy could have a lasting impact on firm employment. Using 12 rounds of surveys to track dynamics four years after the end of the subsidy, the study finds that firms increased employment during the subsidy period, but there was no lasting impact on employment, profitability, or sales. Two supplementary interventions and treatment heterogeneity suggest the lack of impact is not due to complementarities with capital or management skills, and detailed survey data help rule out a number of theoretical mechanisms that could result in sub-optimally low employment. The study concludes that the urban labor market facing microenterprises does not have large frictions that would prevent own-account workers from becoming employers
    Additional Edition: Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe de Mel, Suresh Labor Drops: Experimental Evidence on the Return to Additional Labor in Microenterprises Washington, D.C : The World Bank, 2016
    Language: English
    URL: Volltext  (URL des Erstveröffentlichers)
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 5
    UID:
    b3kat_BV048266497
    Format: 1 Online-Ressource (44 p)
    Content: Accurate measurement of stock levels, turnover, and profitability in microenterprises in developing countries is difficult because the majority of these firms do not keep detailed records. This paper tests the use of radio frequency identification tags as a means of objectively measuring stock levels and stock flow in small retail firms in Sri Lanka. In principle, the tags offer the potential to track stock movements accurately. The paper compares the stock counts obtained from RFID reads to physical stock counts and to survey responses. There are three main findings. First, current RFID-technology is more difficult to use, and more time-consuming to employ, than had been envisaged. Second, the technology works reasonably well for paper products, but very poorly for most products sold by microenterprises: on average only about one-quarter of the products tagged could be read and there was considerable day-to-day variation in read-efficiency. Third, a comparison of survey responses and physical stock-takes shows much higher accuracy for survey measures. As a result, the study concludes that this technology is currently unsuitable for improving stock measurement in microenterprises, except perhaps for a few products
    Additional Edition: de Mel, Suresh Radio Frequency (Un)Identification
    Language: English
    URL: Volltext  (URL des Erstveröffentlichers)
    URL: Volltext  (URL des Erstveröffentlichers)
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 6
    UID:
    b3kat_BV048264711
    Format: 1 Online-Ressource (44 p)
    Content: Using data from surveys of enterprises in Sri Lanka after the December 2004 tsunami, the authors undertake the first microeconomic study of the recovery of the private firms in a developing country following a major natural disaster. Disaster recovery in low-income countries is characterized by the prevalence of relief aid rather than of insurance payments; the data show this distinction has important consequences. The data indicate that aid provided directly to households correlates reasonably well with reported losses of household assets, but is uncorrelated with reported losses of business assets. Business recovery is found to be slower than commonly assumed, with disaster-affected enterprises lagging behind unaffected comparable firms more than three years after the disaster. Using data from random cash grants provided by the project, the paper shows that direct aid is more important in the recovery of enterprises operating in the retail sector than for those operating in the manufacturing and service sectors
    Additional Edition: Woodruff, Christopher Enterprise Recovery Following Natural Disasters
    Language: English
    URL: Volltext  (URL des Erstveröffentlichers)
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  • 7
    UID:
    gbv_1017857083
    Format: Online-Ressource
    Content: We report on a field experiment providing random grants to microenterprise owners. The grants generated large profit increases for male owners but not for female owners. We show that the gender gap does not simply mask differences in ability, risk aversion, entrepreneurial attitudes, or differences in reporting behavior, but there is some evidence that the gender gap is larger in female-dominated industries. The data are not consistent with a unitary household model, and imply an inefficiency of resource allocation within households. We show evidence that this inefficiency is reduced in more cooperative households.
    Language: English
    URL: Volltext  (kostenfrei)
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  • 8
    UID:
    gbv_1759647381
    Format: 1 Online-Ressource
    Series Statement: Policy Research Working Paper No. 7924
    Content: The majority of enterprises in many developing countries have no paid workers. This paper reports on a field experiment conducted in Sri Lanka that provided wage subsidies to randomly chosen microenterprises to test whether hiring additional labor would benefit such firms. In the presence of labor market frictions, a short-term subsidy could have a lasting impact on firm employment. Using 12 rounds of surveys to track dynamics four years after the end of the subsidy, the study finds that firms increased employment during the subsidy period, but there was no lasting impact on employment, profitability, or sales. Two supplementary interventions and treatment heterogeneity suggest the lack of impact is not due to complementarities with capital or management skills, and detailed survey data help rule out a number of theoretical mechanisms that could result in sub-optimally low employment. The study concludes that the urban labor market facing microenterprises does not have large frictions that would prevent own-account workers from becoming employers
    Note: English , en_US
    Language: Undetermined
    Library Location Call Number Volume/Issue/Year Availability
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  • 9
    UID:
    gbv_1759663166
    Format: 1 Online-Ressource
    Series Statement: Policy Research Working Paper No. 7064
    Content: Accurate measurement of stock levels, turnover, and profitability in microenterprises in developing countries is difficult because the majority of these firms do not keep detailed records. This paper tests the use of radio frequency identification tags as a means of objectively measuring stock levels and stock flow in small retail firms in Sri Lanka. In principle, the tags offer the potential to track stock movements accurately. The paper compares the stock counts obtained from RFID reads to physical stock counts and to survey responses. There are three main findings. First, current RFID-technology is more difficult to use, and more time-consuming to employ, than had been envisaged. Second, the technology works reasonably well for paper products, but very poorly for most products sold by microenterprises: on average only about one-quarter of the products tagged could be read and there was considerable day-to-day variation in read-efficiency. Third, a comparison of survey responses and physical stock-takes shows much higher accuracy for survey measures. As a result, the study concludes that this technology is currently unsuitable for improving stock measurement in microenterprises, except perhaps for a few products
    Note: South Asia , Sri Lanka , English , en_US
    Language: Undetermined
    Library Location Call Number Volume/Issue/Year Availability
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  • 10
    UID:
    gbv_1780665962
    Format: 1 Online-Ressource
    Content: Accurate measurement of stock levels, turnover, and profitability in microenterprises in developing countries is difficult due to the fact that the majority of these firms do not keep detailed records. We test the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags as a means of objectively measuring stock levels and stock flow in small retail firms in Sri Lanka. In principle this offers the potential to track stock movements accurately. We compare the stock counts obtained from RFID reads to physical stock counts and to survey responses. We have three main findings. First, current RFID-technology is more difficult to use, and more time-consuming to employ, than we envisaged. Second, the technology works reasonably well for paper products, but very poorly for most products sold by microenterprises: on average we were able to read only about one-quarter of the products tagged, and there was considerable day-to-day variation in read-efficiency. This results from technical issues arising from read efficiency being comprised by liquids, metal, and product stacking. Third, a comparison of survey responses and physical stock-takes shows much higher accuracy for survey measures than RFID. As a result, we conclude that this technology is currently unsuitable for improving stock measurement in microenterprises, except perhaps for a few products
    Note: Sri Lanka , en_US
    Language: Undetermined
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