After being the largest recipient of foreign direct investments (FDIs) among developing countries for more than two decades, China has become an important outbound investor. Here is my article on the China Policy Institute Blog.
A chapter co-authored with Andrea Presbitero on firm access to bank credit in Latin America was published in Firm Innovation and Productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean: The Engine of Economic Development edited by Matteo Grazzi and Carlo Pietrobelli. The paper is also published in Economic Notes.
The complete book can be downloaded here.
I presented her study on Caribbean Clusters in Bridgetown at the IADB Regional Policy Dialogue.
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An intense process of deregulation and financial liberalization in Latin America has increased competitive pressures and led to bank restructuring and consolidation. This paper looks at firm access to credit in the region, focusing on the role of credit market structure. Using firm-level data from theWorld Bank Enterprise Survey, we find that access to bank credit is very heterogeneous. On average, smaller and less productive firms are less likely to apply for credit and more likely to be financially constrained.
The literature on gender-based discrimination in credit markets is recently expanding but the results are not yet definitive. This paper exploits a new dataset on Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago and finds that more precise measures of the gender composition of the firm show that women-led businesses are more likely to be financially constrained than other comparable firms.
A paper on access to bank credit as one of the main constraints impairing firms’ growth, productivity, innovation, and export capacity has been presented at the seminar on Determinants of Firm Performance in LAC: What Does the Micro Evidence Tell Us?
Download the pdf Pres IADB 2014-06
The literature on gender-based discrimination in credit markets is recently expanding but the results are not yet definitive and have not been generally agreed upon. This paper exploits a new dataset on Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, which provides detailed information about female ownership and management in firms for investigating the existence of a gender gap in access to finance. The evidence presented herein suggests that more precise measures of the gender composition of the firm show that women-led businesses are more likely to be financially constrained than other comparable firms.
Download the pdf, WP IADB 2013-10
Key Note speech in a seminar on clusters organised by the Department of Economic Development in Abu Dhabi.
Download the pdf, Pres AbuDhabi 2010-09
Federalism is often described as a zero-sum game in which there is someone who gains and someone who loses, so the attention usually goes to issues about redistribution and equity. In this book, we assume a different perspective and investigate how federalism can facilitate growth and represent an opportunity for development. The papers collected here come from two different strands of the literature: the regional economic growth and its determinants and the analysis about federalism.
Since the second half of the 1990s the Italian economy has experienced a significant slowdown in the rate of economic growth. The ‘dwarfism’ of its manufacturing firms, their specialisation in traditional sectors and their organisation in industrial districts have been identified by many scholars as major structural weaknesses in the Italian industrial system. Nevertheless, there is a vast and flourishing empirical literature showing that many industrial districts are actually changing in terms of sector specialisation, international and innovation strategies and emergence of new forms of enterprise organisation. In this paper, we provide a critical survey of the new and different patterns of industrial organisation emerging in industrial districts.
I was invited at the Knowledge Economy Forum to talk about Global Value Chains and clusters in Latin America.
Download the pdf, Pres Knowledge Economy Forum 2008-06
The notion of ‘Business Development Service’ (BDS) is quickly gaining popularity among policy makers and scholars of management, industrial organization and development. Similarly, attention is increasingly paid to the institutions and centers offering BDS, as an essential part of the ‘local’ or ‘regional innovation system’. The paper analyses the experience of BDS Centres in three highly developed Italian regions, Emilia Romagna, Lombardia and Veneto, and evaluates their performance and contribution to the regional industrial, and notably SME, development. The paper is based on a survey of 30 BDS Centres and it uses quantitative together with qualitative evidence.
Download the pdf, JA WRSTSD 2007-01