Making It Big : Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms

Economic and social progress requires a diverse ecosystem of firms that play complementary roles. Making It Big: Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms constitutes one of the most up-to-date assessments of how large firms are created in low- and middle-income countries and their role in deve...

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Main Authors:	Ciani, Andrea, Hyland, Marie Caitriona, Karalashvili, Nona, Keller, Jennifer L., Ragoussis, Alexandros, Tran, Trang Thu
Format:	Book
Published:	Washington, DC: World Bank 2020
Subjects:	FIRM SIZE PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT INNOVATION VALUE CHAIN COMPETITION POLICY MARKET ACCESS SCALE ECONOMIES
Online Access:	https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/296031600316287832/making-it-big-why-developing-countries-need-more-large-firms http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34430

id	okr-10986-34430
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-344302021-04-23T14:02:00Z Making It Big : Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms Ciani, Andrea Hyland, Marie Caitriona Karalashvili, Nona Keller, Jennifer L. Ragoussis, Alexandros Tran, Trang Thu FIRM SIZE PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT INNOVATION VALUE CHAIN COMPETITION POLICY MARKET ACCESS SCALE ECONOMIES Economic and social progress requires a diverse ecosystem of firms that play complementary roles. Making It Big: Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms constitutes one of the most up-to-date assessments of how large firms are created in low- and middle-income countries and their role in development. It argues that large firms advance a range of development objectives in ways that other firms do not: large firms are more likely to innovate, export, and offer training and are more likely to adopt international standards of quality, among other contributions. Their particularities are closely associated with productivity advantages and translate into improved outcomes not only for their owners but also for their workers and for smaller enterprises in their value chains. The challenge for economic development, however, is that production does not reach economic scale in low- and middle-income countries. Why are large firms scarcer in developing countries? Drawing on a rare set of data from public and private sources, as well as proprietary data from the International Finance Corporation and case studies, this book shows that large firms are often born large—or with the attributes of largeness. In other words, what is distinct about them is often in place from day one of their operations. To fill the “missing top” of the firm-size distribution with additional large firms, governments should support the creation of such firms by opening markets to greater competition. In low-income countries, this objective can be achieved through simple policy reorientation, such as breaking oligopolies, removing unnecessary restrictions to international trade and investment, and establishing strong rules to prevent the abuse of market power. Governments should also strive to ensure that private actors have the skills, technology, intelligence, infrastructure, and finance they need to create large ventures. Additionally, they should actively work to spread the benefits from production at scale across the largest possible number of market participants. This book seeks to bring frontier thinking and evidence on the role and origins of large firms to a wide range of readers, including academics, development practitioners and policy makers. 2020-09-03T18:49:24Z 2020-09-03T18:49:24Z 2020-09-16 Book https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/296031600316287832/making-it-big-why-developing-countries-need-more-large-firms 978-1-4648-1557-7 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34430 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank Washington, DC: World Bank Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Publication
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	FIRM SIZE PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT INNOVATION VALUE CHAIN COMPETITION POLICY MARKET ACCESS SCALE ECONOMIES
spellingShingle	FIRM SIZE PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT INNOVATION VALUE CHAIN COMPETITION POLICY MARKET ACCESS SCALE ECONOMIES Ciani, Andrea Hyland, Marie Caitriona Karalashvili, Nona Keller, Jennifer L. Ragoussis, Alexandros Tran, Trang Thu Making It Big : Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms
description	Economic and social progress requires a diverse ecosystem of firms that play complementary roles. Making It Big: Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms constitutes one of the most up-to-date assessments of how large firms are created in low- and middle-income countries and their role in development. It argues that large firms advance a range of development objectives in ways that other firms do not: large firms are more likely to innovate, export, and offer training and are more likely to adopt international standards of quality, among other contributions. Their particularities are closely associated with productivity advantages and translate into improved outcomes not only for their owners but also for their workers and for smaller enterprises in their value chains. The challenge for economic development, however, is that production does not reach economic scale in low- and middle-income countries. Why are large firms scarcer in developing countries? Drawing on a rare set of data from public and private sources, as well as proprietary data from the International Finance Corporation and case studies, this book shows that large firms are often born large—or with the attributes of largeness. In other words, what is distinct about them is often in place from day one of their operations. To fill the “missing top” of the firm-size distribution with additional large firms, governments should support the creation of such firms by opening markets to greater competition. In low-income countries, this objective can be achieved through simple policy reorientation, such as breaking oligopolies, removing unnecessary restrictions to international trade and investment, and establishing strong rules to prevent the abuse of market power. Governments should also strive to ensure that private actors have the skills, technology, intelligence, infrastructure, and finance they need to create large ventures. Additionally, they should actively work to spread the benefits from production at scale across the largest possible number of market participants. This book seeks to bring frontier thinking and evidence on the role and origins of large firms to a wide range of readers, including academics, development practitioners and policy makers.
format	Book
author	Ciani, Andrea Hyland, Marie Caitriona Karalashvili, Nona Keller, Jennifer L. Ragoussis, Alexandros Tran, Trang Thu
author_facet	Ciani, Andrea Hyland, Marie Caitriona Karalashvili, Nona Keller, Jennifer L. Ragoussis, Alexandros Tran, Trang Thu
author_sort	Ciani, Andrea
title	Making It Big : Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms
title_short	Making It Big : Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms
title_full	Making It Big : Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms
title_fullStr	Making It Big : Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms
title_full_unstemmed	Making It Big : Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms
title_sort	making it big : why developing countries need more large firms
publisher	Washington, DC: World Bank
publishDate	2020
url	https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/296031600316287832/making-it-big-why-developing-countries-need-more-large-firms http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34430
_version_	1764480880709992448

Making It Big : Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms

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