Assessing the impact of the investment climate on productivity using firm-level data : methodology and the cases of Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua / Alvaro Escribano, J. Luis Guasch
"Developing countries are increasingly concerned about improving country competitiveness and productivity as they face the increasing pressures of globalization and attempt to improve economic growth and reduce poverty. Among such countries, investment climate assessments (ICA) have become a st...
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| Main Authors: | Escribano, Álvaro, ca. 20./21. Jh. |
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| Corporate Authors: | World Bank |
| Other Authors: | Guasch, José Luis |
| Format: | Online-Resource |
| Language: | English |
| Published: | [Washington, D.C] : World Bank, 2005 |
| Series: | Policy research working paper
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | URL des Erstveröffentlichers |
| Summary: | "Developing countries are increasingly concerned about improving country competitiveness and productivity as they face the increasing pressures of globalization and attempt to improve economic growth and reduce poverty. Among such countries, investment climate assessments (ICA) have become a standard instrument for identifying key obstacles to country competitiveness and imputing their impact on productivity, in order to prioritize policy reforms for enhancing competitiveness. Given the survey objectives and the nature and limitations of the data collected, the authors discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using different productivity measures based on data at the firm level. Their main objective is to develop a methodology to appropriately estimate, in a robust manner, the productivity impact of the investment climate variables. To illustrate the use of this methodology, the authors apply it to the data collected for ICAs in three countries-Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Observations in logarithms (logs) of the variables, and not in rates of growth, are pooled from all three countries. The econometric analysis is done with variables in logs to reduce the impact of measurement errors and allow inclusion of as many observations as possible since the "panel" data set is very unbalanced. The authors address the endogeneity of the production function inputs and of the investment climate variables by using a variant of the control function approach based on individual firm information, and by aggregating investment climate variables by industry and region. The authors show that it is possible to get robust results for 10 different productivity measures, if one follows a consistent econometric methodology of specification and estimation. |
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| Item Description: | Includes bibliographical references. - Title from PDF file as viewed on 6/6/2005 Erscheinungsjahr in Vorlageform:[2005] Weitere Ausgabe: Escribano, Alvaro: Assessing the impact of the investment climate on productivity using firm-level data |
| Physical Description: | 1 Online-Ressource (102 Seiiten) |
