O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth

• Financial Constraints and Investment: Assessing the Impact of a World Bank Loan Program on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Sri Lanka

  Staff Working Paper 2003-37 Varouj Aivazian, Dipak Mazumdar, Eric Santor

  The authors examine the investment behaviour of a sample of small, credit-constrained firms in Sri Lanka. Using a unique panel-data set, they analyze and compare the activities of two groups of small firms distinguished by their different access to financing; one group consists of firms with heavily subsidized loans from the World Bank, and the other consists of firms without such subsidies.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Development economics JEL Code(s): G, G0, G00, O, O1, O16

• Do Peer Group Members Outperform Individual Borrowers? A Test of Peer Group Lending Using Canadian Micro-Credit Data

  Staff Working Paper 2003-33 Rafael Gomez, Eric Santor

  Microfinance institutions now serve over 10 million poor households in the developing and developed world, and much of their success has been attributed to their innovative use of peer group lending. There is very little empirical evidence, however, to suggest that group lending schemes offer a superior institutional design over lending programs that serve individual borrowers.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Development economics JEL Code(s): E, J, J2, J23, O, O1, O17

• Technological Change and the Education Premium in Canada: Sectoral Evidence

  Staff Working Paper 2003-18 Jean Farès, Terence Yuen

  It has been well documented that the education premium measured by the wage difference between university and high school graduates has remained constant over the past two decades in Canada. Despite this stable pattern at the aggregate level, skill-biased technology could have important implications for the inter-industry wage structure.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Labour markets JEL Code(s): J, J3, J31, O, O3, O30