Person:
Cirera, Xavier
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Degrees
ORCID
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Departments
Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
August 7, 2023
Biography
Xavier Cirera is a senior economist in the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation (FCI) Global Practice of the World Bank. His work focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship. He has led the evaluation of innovation policies, including through the development of public expenditure reviews in science, technology, and innovation implemented in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ukraine, and Vietnam. He is the coauthor of The Innovation Paradox: Developing-Country Capabilities and the Unrealized Promise of Technological Catch-Up and A Practitioner’s Guide to Innovation Policy: Instruments to Build Firm Capabilities and Accelerate Technological Catch-Up in Developing Countries. His most recent work focuses on the measurement and impact of technology adoption and diffusion. Before joining the World Bank, he served as a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Sussex.
Publication Search Results
1 - 2 of 2
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Publication
Exporting and Technology Adoption in Brazil
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-06-15)There is limited evidence on the role of participating in international trade in the diffusion of technologies. This paper analyzes the impact of exporting on firms’ adoption of more sophisticated technologies, using a novel dataset, the Firm-level Adoption of Technology survey, which includes more than 1,500 firms in Brazil. The survey provides detailed information on the use of more than 300 technologies, combined with data from Brazil’s census of formal workers and export data from the Ministry of Trade. To address critical endogeneity concerns, the analysis applies difference-in-differences with multiple periods to examine the effects of entering export markets on technology adoption. The findings show that exporting has a positive effect on firms’ likelihood of adopting advanced technologies in business functions related to business administration, production planning, supply chain management, and quality control, which are important for managing tasks associated with export activities. -
Publication
Policies to Support Businesses through the COVID-19 Shock: A Firm Level Perspective
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2021-02-18)Relying on a novel dataset covering more than 120,000 firms in 60 countries, this paper contributes to the debate about policies to support businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic. While governments around the world have implemented a wide range of policy support measures, evidence on the reach of these policies, the alignment of measures with firm needs, and their targeting and effectiveness remains scarce. This paper provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of these issues, focusing primarily on developing economies. It shows that policy reach has been limited, especially for more vulnerable firms and countries, and identifies mismatches between policies provided and policies most sought. It also provides some indicative evidence regarding mistargeting of policies and their effectiveness in addressing liquidity constraints and preventing layoffs. This assessment provides some early guidance to policymakers on tailoring their COVID-19 business support packages and points to new directions in data and research efforts needed to guide policy responses to the current pandemic and future crises.