IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/wpaper/4257.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Obstacles to Business Development and the Size of Firms in Latin America

Author

Listed:
  • Eduardo Lora
  • Patricia Cortés

Abstract

(Available only in Spanish) Given the multiplicity of factors that can affect business development for both the entrepreneurs themselves and for national economic authorities, it is useful to establish the severity of these obstacles so that their efforts can focus on the most critical problems. With that objective, this study analyzes two new and very valuable sources of information. First, we use the results from a set of "Business Environment Surveys" conducted in 73 countries, which researched the importance and severity of a series of problems that can affect the operation and growth of firms. Second, we analyze information from the balance sheets of large companies in 52 countries in various regions of the world to detect some features of Latin American firms, and analyze the determinants of the size of large companies, on the assumption that these firms are on the frontline of the possibilities of business development offered by each country.

Suggested Citation

  • Eduardo Lora & Patricia Cortés, 2001. "Obstacles to Business Development and the Size of Firms in Latin America," Research Department Publications 4257, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:wpaper:4257
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iadb.org/research/pub_hits.cfm?pub_id=WP-447&pub_file_name=pubWP-447.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy, 1994. "The Division of Labor, Coordination Costs, and Knowledge," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 299-322, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Zoido-Lobaton, Pablo, 1999. "Governance matters," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2196, The World Bank.
    3. Erik Brynjolfsson, 1994. "Information Assets, Technology and Organization," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(12), pages 1645-1662, December.
    4. Michael Kremer, 1993. "The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 551-575.
    5. Carmen Pagés-Serra, 2000. "The Cost of Job Security Regulation: Evidence from Latin American Labor Markets," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2000), pages 109-154, August.
    6. Dollar, David & Micco, Alejandro & Clark, Ximena, 2002. "Maritime transport costs and port efficiency," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2781, The World Bank.
    7. La Porta, Rafael, et al, 1997. "Trust in Large Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 333-338, May.
    8. Krishna B. Kumar & Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, "undated". "What Determines Firm Size?," CRSP working papers 496, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    9. Easterly, William & Rebelo, Sergio, 1993. "Fiscal policy and economic growth: An empirical investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 417-458, December.
    10. Hart, Oliver, 1995. "Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288817.
    11. Galindo, Arturo & Micco, Alejandro, 2001. "Creditor Protection and Financial Cycles," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1341, Inter-American Development Bank.
    12. Galindo, Arturo & Calderón, César & Chong, Alberto E., 2001. "Structure and Development of Financial Institutions and Links with Trust: Cross-Country Evidence," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1343, Inter-American Development Bank.
    13. Blanca Sanchez‐Robles, 1998. "Infrastructure Investment And Growth: Some Empirical Evidence," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 16(1), pages 98-108, January.
    14. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119.
    15. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
    16. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Zoido-Lobaton, Pablo, 1999. "Aggregating governance indicators," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2195, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lora, Eduardo & Cortés, Patricia & Herrera, Ana María, 2001. "Los obstáculos al desarrollo empresarial y el tamaño de las firmas en América Latina," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 2144, Inter-American Development Bank.
    2. Krishna B. Kumar & Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, "undated". "What Determines Firm Size?," CRSP working papers 496, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    3. Christophe Godlewski & Laurent Weill, 2011. "Does Collateral Help Mitigate Adverse Selection? A Cross-Country Analysis," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 40(1), pages 49-78, October.
    4. Galashin Mikhail & Popov Sergey V., 2016. "Teamwork Efficiency and Company Size," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 337-366, January.
    5. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 2001. "The Firm as a Dedicated Hierarchy: A Theory of the Origins and Growth of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(3), pages 805-851.
    6. Welsch, Heinz, 2004. "Corruption, growth, and the environment: a cross-country analysis," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(5), pages 663-693, October.
    7. Lindner, Ines & Strulik, Holger, 2014. "From tradition to modernity: Economic growth in a small world," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 17-29.
    8. Wheeler, Christopher H., 2008. "Worker turnover, industry localization, and producer size," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 322-334, May.
    9. Wheeler, Christopher H., 2006. "Productivity and the geographic concentration of industry: The role of plant scale," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 313-330, May.
    10. Oliver Hart, 2001. "Norms and the Theory of the Firm," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1923, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    11. Leopoldo Fergusson, 2006. "Institutions for Financial Development: What are they and where do they come from?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 27-70, February.
    12. Stephane Straub, 2011. "Infrastructure and Development: A Critical Appraisal of the Macro-level Literature," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(5), pages 683-708.
    13. Kikuchi, Tomoo & Nishimura, Kazuo & Stachurski, John, 2018. "Span of control, transaction costs and the structure of production chains," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), May.
    14. Juan S. Mora-Sanguinetti & Ricardo Pérez-Valls, 2021. "How does regulatory complexity affect business demography? Evidence from Spain," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 203-242, April.
    15. Staffan Canback, 2004. "Diseconomies of scale in large corporations: Theory and empirical analysis," Industrial Organization 0402001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Kikuchi, Tomoo & Nishimura, Kazuo & Stachurski, John & Zhang, Junnan, 2021. "Coase meets Bellman: Dynamic programming for production networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    17. Trong Ngo & Andrew Mullineux & Anh Ly, 2014. "The impact of scale of operation on financial performance in microfinance," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 4(2), pages 177-198, December.
    18. Staffan Canback, 1998. "Managerial diseconomies of scale: Literature survey and hypotheses anchored in transaction cost economics," Industrial Organization 9810001, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 04 Oct 2002.
    19. Dang, Chongyu & (Frank) Li, Zhichuan & Yang, Chen, 2018. "Measuring firm size in empirical corporate finance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 159-176.
    20. Simeon D. Alder, 2016. "In the Wrong Hands: Complementarities, Resource Allocation, and TFP," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 199-241, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:idb:wpaper:4257. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.