Small firms dominate the economies of developing countries. This phenomenon occurs in all sectors, but it is particularly salient in the retail sector.

Diana Sverdlin Lisker, Daniel Ramos-Menchelli |

The West African Economic and Monetary Union community, which comprises Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo, is facing a deficit of decent housing of…

Mazen Bouri |

Despite the growing prevalence of near-instant collateral-free digital credit products in more developed markets, many African women entrepreneurs continue to grapple with obstacles to obtaining…

Siegfried Zottel, Sean Ding |

A ‘financing assets’ approach has limitations when it comes to scaling up private financing. One promising way to bridge the risk-return gap is to finance risk capital.

Jean Pesme, Niraj Verma, Jing Zhao |

Lower branch density was correlated with lower bank stock returns and higher outflows of uninsured deposits around the time of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse.

Efraim Benmelech, Jun Yang, Michał Zator |

Despite increasing efforts by many countries to limit emissions, the combined climate commitments pledges could only bring us closer to limiting the global temperature rise to 2.5 degrees Celsius…

Federica Zeni |

Advanced and developing economies in 2022 recorded their highest inflation rates for over a decade (Global Economic Prospects, January 2023). Global inflation soared in 2022, rising above 9…

Assyifa Szami Ilman, Indira Maulani Hapsari |

A new knowledge brief - “A comparison of different sources of purchasing power parity (PPPs) estimates” - reviews five sources of purchasing power parity (PPP) estimates and explores how they…

Marko Rissanen, Robert Inklaar |

Many firms, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), rely on bank borrowing, which is typically more restrictive in terms of amount, tenor, risk tolerance, and financial instruments…

Djeneba Doumbia, Imtiaz Ul Haq, Valentina Saltane |