Person:
Hallward-Driemeier, Mary

Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions

Fields of Specialization

Private sector development, Firm dynamics, Firm Productivity, Entrepreneurship, Women's economic empowerment, Investment climate, Gender, Development Economics

ORCID

0000-0003-0076-9744

External Links

RePEc
Google Scholar
Brookings Institution

Departments

Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions

Last updated: January 31, 2023

Biography

Mary Hallward-Driemeier is Senior Economic Adviser in the Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions Vice Presidency at the World Bank, overseeing its analytical agenda on private sector development. She joined the World Bank in 1997 as a Young Professional. She has published widely on firm productivity, the economics of technological change and the impact of crises. She leads the Jobs and Economic Transformation special theme for the International Development Association (IDA). She has served as advisor to two World Bank’s Chief Economists, co-manager of the Jobs Group, and Deputy Director for the World Development Report 2005: A Better Investment Climate for Everyone. Her previous books include Trouble in the Making? The Future of Manufacturing-Led Development (with Gaurav Nayyar) and Enterprising Women: Expanding Economic Opportunities in Africa. Mary received her AB from Harvard, her MSc in Development Economics from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and her PhD in Economics from MIT.

Full item page

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 32

Enterprising Women : Expanding Economic Opportunities in Africa
(Washington, DC: Agence Française de Développement and the World Bank, 2013-06-05) Hallward-Driemeier, Mary
This book brings together new household and enterprise data from 41 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to inform policy makers and practitioners on ways to expand women entrepreneurs’ economic opportunities. Sub-Saharan Africa boasts the highest share of women entrepreneurs, but they are disproportionately concentrated among the self-employed rather than employers. Relative to men, women are pursuing lower opportunity activities, with their enterprises more likely to be smaller, informal, and in low value-added lines of business. The challenge in expanding opportunities is not helping more women become entrepreneurs but enabling them to shift to higher return activities. A central question addressed in the book is what explains the gender sorting in the types of enterprises that women and men run? The analysis shows that many Sub-Saharan countries present a challenging environment for women. Four key areas of the agenda for expanding women’s economic opportunities in Africa are analyzed: strengthening women’s property rights and their ability to control assets; improving women’s access to finance; building human capital in business skills and networks; and strengthening women’s voices in business environment reform. These areas are important both because they have wide gender gaps and because they help explain gender differences in entrepreneurial activities. It is particularly striking that while gender gaps in education tend to close with higher incomes, gaps in women’s property rights and in women’s participation in reform processes do not. As simply raising a country’s income is unlikely to be sufficient to give women equal ability to control assets or have greater voice, more proactive steps will be needed. Practical guidelines to move the agenda forward are discussed for each of these key areas.
Deals and Delays: Firm-level Evidence on Corruption and Policy Implementation Times
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2016-07-01) Freund, Caroline; Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Rijkers, Bob
Whether demands for bribes for particular government services are associated with expedited or delayed policy implementation underlies debates around the role of corruption in private sector development. The “grease the wheels” hypothesis, which contends that bribes act as speed money, implies three testable predictions. First, on average, bribe requests should be negatively correlated with wait times. Second, this relationship should vary across firms, with those with the highest opportunity cost of waiting being more likely to pay and facing shorter delays. Third, the role of grease should vary across countries, with benefits larger where regulatory burdens are greatest. The data are inconsistent with all three predictions. According to the preferred specifications, ceteris paribus, firms confronted with demands for bribes take approximately 1.5 times longer to get a construction permit, operating license, or electrical connection than firms that did not have to pay bribes and, respectively, 1.2 and 1.4 times longer to clear customs when exporting and importing. The results are robust to controlling for firm fixed effects and at odds with the notion that corruption enhances efficiency.
Do Crises Catalyze Creative Destruction? Firm-level Evidence from Indonesia
(MIT Press, 2013-12) Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Rijkers, Bob
Using Indonesian manufacturing census data (1991–2001), this paper rejects the hypothesis that the East Asian crisis unequivocally improved the reallocative process. The correlation between productivity and employment growth did not strengthen, and the crisis induced the exit of relatively productive firms. The attenuation of the relationship between productivity and survival was stronger in provinces with comparatively lower reductions in minimum wages, but not due to reduced entry, changing loan conditions, or firms connected to the Suharto regime suffering disproportionately. On the bright side, firms that entered during the crisis were relatively more productive, which helped mitigate the reduction in aggregate productivity.
Big Constraints to Small Firms' Growth? Business Environment and Employment Growth across Firms
(2011) Aterido, Reyes; Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Pages, Carmen
Using data on more than 56,000 enterprises in 90 countries, this study finds that objective conditions in the business environment vary substantially across firms of different sizes and that there are important nonlinearities in their impact on employment growth. The study focuses on four areas: access to finance, business regulations, corruption, and infrastructure. The results, particularly on the impacts of finance and corruption on growth, depend on whether and how the analysis accounts for the possible endogeneity of the business environment. Controlling for endogeneity revises the finding that small firms benefit most from access to finance, particularly for sources of finance associated with investment and growth. The findings are also sensitive to how "small" is defined. Differentiating micro (fewer than 10 employees) from other small firms shows that, while small firms can be disadvantaged in such an environment, micro firms tend to be proportionally less affected by a weak business climate--and, on occasion, it can help them to grow. Overall, allowing different size classifications provides insights into the impact of the business environment that are lost in more aggregate analyses.
Trouble in the Making?: The Future of Manufacturing-Led Development
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-09-20) Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Nayyar, Gaurav
Globalization and new technologies are impacting the desirability and feasibility of what has historically been the most successful development strategy. Manufacturing has been seen as special, promising both productivity gains and job creation. But trade is slowing. Global value chains (GVC) are maturing. Robotics, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and the Internet of things are shifting what makes locations attractive for production and threatening significant disruptions in employment. There is a risk of increased polarization, within countries and across countries. Shifting the attention from high-income countries, this report takes the perspective of developing countries to ask: -- If new technologies reduce the importance of low-wage labor, how can developing countries compete? -- Do countries need to industrialize to develop? -- How can countries at different levels of development take advantage of new opportunities? Development strategies need to broaden. Different manufacturing sub-sectors can still provide productivity growth or jobs; fewer can deliver both. Many of the pro-development characteristics traditionally associated with manufacturing--tradability, scale, innovation, learning-by-doing--are increasingly features of services. With faster diffusion of technology, it will be all the more important for countries to improve the enabling environment, remain open to trade, and support capabilities of firms and workers to ensure future prosperity is shared.
At Your Service?: The Promise of Services-Led Development
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-09-15) Nayyar, Gaurav; Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Davies, Elwyn
Throughout history, industrialization has been synonymous with development. However, the trend of premature deindustrialization and the spread of automation technologies associated with Industry 4.0 has raised concerns that the development model based on export-led manufacturing seen in East Asia will be harder for hitherto less industrialized countries to replicate in the future. Can services-led development be an alternative? Contrary to conventional wisdom, the features of manufacturing that were considered uniquely conducive for productivity growth - such as international trade, scale economies, inter-sectoral linkages, and innovation - are increasingly shared by the services sector. But services are not monolithic. The twin gains of productivity growth and large-scale job creation for relatively low-skilled workers are less likely to come together in any given services subsector. The promise of services-led development in the future will be strengthened to the extent that technological change reduces the trade-off between productivity and jobs, and growth opportunities in services with potential for high productivity do not depend on a manufacturing base. Considering technological change and linkages between sectors while differentiating across types of services, this book assesses the scope of a services-driven development model and policy directions that maximize its potential.
How Do Investment Climate Conditions Vary Across Countries, Regions and Types of Firms?
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004) Hallward-Driemeier, Mary
Drawing on the World Bank's surveys of over 30,000 firms in 53 developing countries and Doing Business indicators in 130 countries, this paper provide new insights into both the perceptions of local entrepreneurs about constraints they face, but also objective measures of infrastructure quality, regulatory burdens, crime, access to finance, and the security of property rights at the country level. Doing Business indicators give the costs of fully complying with various regulatory procedures. Together, the formal requirements and the actual experience of different types of firms illustrate the scope for investment climate improvements. The potential gains, in terms of increased productivity, investment and job growth are considerable. That smaller firms face costs that are up to a third higher underscores that improving investment climate conditions will disproportionately benefit small firms.
Does Democratization Promote Competition?: Evidence from Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-01) Kochanova, Anna; Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Rijkers, Bob
Does democratization promote economic competition? This paper documents that the disruption of political connections associated with Suharto’s fall had a modest pro-competitive effect on Indonesian manufacturing industries. Firms with connections to Suharto lost substantial market share following his resignation. Industries in which Suharto family firms had larger market share during his tenure exhibited weak improvements in broader measures of competition in the post-Suharto era relative to industries in which Suharto firms had not been important players.
Have Robots Grounded the Flying Geese? Evidence from Greenfield FDI in Manufacturing
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-12) Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Nayyar, Gaurav
For decades, manufacturers around the world have outsourced production to countries with lower labor costs. However, there is a concern that robotization in high-income countries will challenge this shifting international division of labor known as the "flying geese" paradigm. Greenfield foreign direct investment decisions constitute a forward-looking indicator of where production is expected, rather than trade flows that reflect past investment decisions. Exploiting differences across countries and industries, the intensity of robot use in high-income countries has a positive impact on foreign direct investment growth from high-income countries to low- and middle-income countries over 2004-15. Past a threshold, however, increased robotization in high-income countries has a negative impact on foreign direct investment growth. Only 3 percent of the sample exceeds the threshold level beyond which further automation results in negative foreign direct investment growth and is consistent with re-shoring. For another 25 percent of the sample, the impact of robotization on the growth of foreign direct investment is positive, but at a rate that is declining. So, although these are early warning signs, automation in high-income countries has resulted in growing foreign direct investment for more than two-thirds of the sample under consideration. Some geese may be slowing, but for now, most continue to fly.
Can Minimum Wages Close the Gender Wage Gap?: Evidence from Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-07) Waxman, Andrew; Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Rijkers, Bob
Using manufacturing plant-level census data, this paper demonstrates that minimum wage increases in Indonesia reduced gender wage gaps among production workers, with heterogeneous impacts by level of education and position of the firm in the wage distribution. Paradoxically, educated women appear to have benefitted the most, particularly in the lower half of the firm average earnings distribution. By contrast, women who did not complete primary education did not benefit on average, and even lost ground in the upper end of the earnings distribution. Minimum wage increases were thus associated with exacerbated gender pay gaps among the least educated, and reduced gender gaps among the best educated production workers. Unconditional quantile regression analysis attests to wage compression and lighthouse effects. Changes in relative employment prospects were limited.