Islam, Asif M.

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Islam, Asif M.

Development Economics, Enterprise Analysis Group

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Development Economics, Enterprise Analysis Group

Last updated September 12, 2023

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Public Procurement and the Private Business Sector: Evidence from Firm-Level Data

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-09) Ghossein, Tania ; Islam, Asif Mohammed ; Saliola, Federica

The quality of the public procurement system of an economy can have far-reaching effects on the private sector. This paper empirically explores several of these effects using two rich data sets. An overall indicator of public procurement quality is created from the World Bank’s Benchmarking Public Procurement project that is then combined with firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. The analysis includes more than 59,000 firms spanning more than 109 economies. The paper finds that firms in economies with good public procurement systems are more likely to participate in public procurement, face lower losses from shipping to domestic markets, and experience lower incidence of bribery than economies with poor public procurement systems. Similarly, better public procurement systems are positively correlated with more engagement in innovation, research and development, international certification, foreign technology adoption, and online connectivity.
Paid Maternity Leave and Female Employment: Evidence Using Firm-Level Survey Data for Developing Countries

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-01) Amin, Mohammad ; Islam, Asif

The relationship between the length of paid maternity leave and the proportion of female workers in the private sector is explored using firm-level survey data for 66 mostly developing countries. The paper finds a large, positive, and statistically significant relationship between the two. According to the most conservative estimate, an increase of one week of paid maternity leave is associated with a 2.6 percentage points increase in the share of workers in a typical firm that are female. As expected, the stated relationship is much larger when the government pays for maternity leave versus the employer. The results are robust to several controls for firm and country characteristics and other possible heterogeneities in the maternity leave and female workers relationship.
Public Procurement Regulation and Road Quality

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-11) Djankov, Simeon ; Ghossein, Tania ; Islam, Asif Mohammed ; Saliola, Federica

Public procurement regulation is an important instrument for using public resources efficiently and ensuring quality services to citizens. On average, the public procurement sector accounts for 14.5 percent of the gross domestic product globally. Using new data, this study documents public procurement regulation and related processes in 142 economies. Scores for three public procurement areas are constructed and amalgamated into an overall quality of public procurement index. The index is then related to a measure of road quality across countries. The results indicate that improvement in the public procurement system improves road quality, especially in non-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.
The Labor Productivity Gap between Female and Male-Managed Firms in the Formal Private Sector

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-05) Islam, Asif ; Gaddis, Isis ; Palacios-Lopez, Amparo ; Amin, Mohammad

This study analyzes gender differences in labor productivity in the formal private sector, using data from 128 mostly developing economies. The results reveal a sizable unconditional gap, with labor productivity being approximately 11 percent lower among female- than male-managed firms. The analyses are based on female management, which is more strongly associated with labor productivity than female participation in ownership, which has been the focus of most previous studies. Decomposition techniques reveal several factors that contribute to lower labor productivity of female-managed firms relative to male-managed firms: fewer female- than male-managed firms protect themselves from crime and power outages, have their own websites, and are (co-) owned by foreigners. In addition, in the manufacturing sector, female-managed firms are less capitalized and have lower labor cost than male-managed firms.
Does Mobile Money Use Increase Firms' Investment?: Evidence from Enterprise Surveys in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-11) Islam, Asif ; Muzi, Silvia ; Rodriguez Meza, Jorge Luis

Private investment can be an important engine of economic growth in East African countries, which, despite recent growth rates, are still plagued with adverse economic conditions. Against this backdrop, there has been substantial penetration of mobile money, moving beyond simple person-to-person exchanges toward adoption by private firms. This study explores whether there is a relationship between firm adoption of mobile money and firm investment. Using firm-level data that are nationally representative of the private sector in three East African countries -- Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda -- a positive relationship is found between mobile money use and the probability of a firm’s purchase of fixed assets. This relationship is attributed to reduced transaction costs, increased liquidity, and increased credit worthiness associated with the use of mobile phone financial services.
Entrepreneurship and the Allocation of Government Spending Under Imperfect Markets

(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2015-01) Islam, Asif

Previous studies have established a negative relationship between total government spending and entrepreneurship activity. However, the relationship between the composition of government spending and entrepreneurial activity has been woefully under-researched. This paper fills this gap in the literature by empirically exploring the relationship between government spending on social and public goods and entrepreneurial activity under the assumption of credit market imperfections. By combining macroeconomic government spending data with individual-level entrepreneurship data, the analysis finds a positive relationship between increasing the share of social and public goods at the cost of private subsidies and entrepreneurship while confirming a negative relationship between total government consumption and entrepreneurial activity. The implication may be that expansion of total government spending includes huge increases in private subsidies, at the cost of social and public goods, and is detrimental for entrepreneurship.
Unequal before the Law: Measuring Legal Gender Disparities across the World

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-08) Iqbal, Sarah ; Islam, Asif ; Ramalho, Rita ; Sakhonchik, Alena

Several economies have laws that treat women differently from men. This study explores the degree of such legal gender disparities across 167 economies around the world. This is achieved by constructing a simple measure of legal gender disparities to evaluate how countries perform. The average number of overall legal gender disparities across 167 economies is 17, ranging from a minimum of 2 to a maximum of 44. The maximum possible legal gender disparities is 71. The measure is found to be correlated with other measures of gender inequality, implying the measure does capture gender inequality while also differing from preexisting measures of gender inequality. A high degree of legal gender disparities is found to be negatively associated with a wide range of outcomes, including years of education of women relative to men, labor force participation rates of women relative to men, proportion of women top managers, proportion of women in parliament, percentage of women that borrowed from a financial institution relative to men, and child mortality rates. Subcategories within the legal disparities measure help to uncover specific types of legal disparities across economies.
Does Paternity Leave Matter for Female Employment in Developing Economies?: Evidence from Firm Data

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-03) Amin, Mohammad ; Islam, Asif ; Sakhonchik, Alena

For a sample of 53 developing countries, the results show that women's employment among private firms is significantly higher in countries that mandate paternity leave versus those that do not. A conservative estimate suggests an increase of 6.8 percentage points in the proportion of women workers associated with the mandating of paternity leave.
Economic Growth and Crime against Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Developing Economies

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-02) Islam, Asif

Several studies have explored the relationship between economy-level crime rates or individual-level crime and economic growth. However, few studies have examined the relationship between economic growth and crime against firms. This study uses data for about 12,000 firms in 27 developing countries and finds that economic growth is negatively associated with crime. This relationship is stronger for small and medium firms than large firms. The study also explores several economy-wide factors and their influence on the growth-crime relationship for small and medium enterprises. The results are robust to various sensitivity checks.
Imports of Intermediate Inputs and Country Size

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-01) Amin, Mohammad ; Islam, Asif

The paper analyzes the relationship between country size and the use of imported intermediate inputs by firms in 76 developing countries. Recent evidence indicates that the use of imported inputs can have a large, positive effect on productivity and growth, thus motivating a better understanding of the determinants of foreign inputs. The results confirm that, as is the case with exports, use of imported intermediate inputs is much higher at the extensive and intensive margins in small relative to large countries. The results for imported inputs are comparable in magnitude with those for exports.