Grover, Arti

Person:
Grover, Arti

Author Name Variants

Grover Goswami, Arti, Goswami, Arti Grover, Grover, Arti

Fields of Specialization

Firm innovation, Firm productivity, Innovation policy, Services trade competitiveness, Firm dynamics, Territorial development, Spatial economics

Last updated:November 14, 2025

Biography

Arti Grover is a Principal Economist and Regional Program Leader heading the economic research and strategy for the Middle East, Central Asia, Türkiye, Pakistan & Afghanistan (MCT) region of the IFC. Prior to this position, Arti was the Global Lead on Firm Dynamics at the Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice. In this role, she managed a team of highly talented micro-economists; shaped the group’s agenda on firm dynamics and productivity; conceptualized the Investment Climate Assessments (ICA) 2.0 as well as the World Bank’s engagement on climate change from the perspective of the private sector. During the pandemic she spearheaded a major analytic program on Business Pulse Surveys and used the evidence from this work to design COVID-19 emergency operations. She has extensive experience in working on complex analytical and lending projects, deploying novel approaches to support firms. Her research covers a wide range of topics including firm dynamics, trade, productivity, entrepreneurship and spatial development. She co-authored two of the World Bank’s Productivity Project flagship reports – High-growth firms and Place, Productivity and Prosperity and three books on trade in services. In addition, she has published over thirty articles in top peer-reviewed journals, as chapters in books, and as World Bank policy research papers. Ms. Grover has been affiliated, in a research capacity, with the Harvard Business School and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the Bank in 2009, she was a Doctoral Fulbright fellow at Princeton University and an Assistant Professor at Delhi School of Economics, India.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/39149

Full item page

Publication Search Results

Now showing1 - 10 of 55

Geopolitical Fragmentation and Friendshoring: Evidence from Project-Level Foreign Investment Data
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-26) Grover, Arti; Vézina, Pierre-Louis
This paper examines the relationship between geopolitical fragmentation and friendshoring of foreign investments over time, countries, and sectors. The analysis uses comprehensive data on foreign direct investments covering greenfield projects, mergers and acquisitions, and stocks of affiliates, as well as data on four alternative measures of geopolitical distance between countries. The gravity estimations suggest that, first, geopolitical differences have a negative effect on foreign investments and the magnitude has heightened in the post-pandemic period compared to a decade ago. Second, it is primarily the companies from advanced Western economies whose foreign investment decisions are increasingly shaped by friendshoring forces. Finally, the paper shows that friendshoring is not only confined to strategic industries, implying that allocations of foreign direct investments may not solely reflect national security or resilience considerations.
Firm-Level Climate Change Adaptation: Micro Evidence from 134 Nations
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-10) Berg, Claudia; Bettarelli, Luca; Furceri, Davide; Ganslmeier, Michael; Grover, Arti; Lang, Megan; Schiffbauer, Marc
Are firms adapting to climate change? This paper studies this question by combining geocoded World Bank Enterprise Survey data with spatially granular weather data to estimate temperature response functions for nearly 160,000 firms in 134 countries over a 15-year period. Our results show that market imperfections in low- and middle-income countries constrain firms’ ability to adapt. Small and medium-size firms in low- and low-middle income countries are most vulnerable, with revenues declining by 12 percent in years with temperatures 0.5◦C above historical averages. The impact is equally strong for manufacturing and services firms and result from declines in labor productivity and wages. Heat-sensitive sectors and less resilient firms are more severely affected, reinforcing the causal interpretation. Unique firm-level information on policy constraints including limited financing, burdensome regulations, and unsafe conditions suggest that such factors raise adaptation costs, undermining economic resilience to climate change.
The Impact of Trade Promotion Organizations on Exports: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-08-13) Choi, Yewon; Fernandes, Ana Margarida; Grover, Arti; Iacovone, Leonardo; Olarreaga, Marcelo
This paper examines the impact of trade promotion organizations on exports during the COVID-19 pandemic using a World Bank survey. The results suggest that increased trade promotion organization budgets significantly boosted exports during downturns but had no effect during the recovery phase. Interestingly, e-commerce programs adopted by trade promotion organizations negatively affected exports during downturns as they diverted resources away from productive support, especially for sectors not intensive in online trade. These findings suggest that countercyclical trade promotion organizations budgets may enhance trade resilience during similar global shocks.
The Gendered Impact of Social Norms on Financial Access and Capital Misallocation
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-22) Grover, Arti; Viollaz, Mariana
This paper provides evidence on the nature of financial constraints faced by women entrepreneurs, especially in contexts of stringent social norms. Using micro-data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys for 61 countries, the analysis shows that formal firms managed by women do not face credit constraints on the extensive margin. They are equally likely to apply for credit as their male counterparts and experience lower rates of credit rejection, with a higher likelihood of opening credit lines. However, on the intensive margin, firms managed by women receive lower credit amounts, indicating signs of credit constraints. This disparity in access to credit cannot be explained by gender differences in risk profiles, profitability, or productivity. However, firms managed by women have lower sales per worker, suggesting challenges in accessing product and labor markets. The paper finds suggestive evidence of capital misallocation based on gender, particularly in countries with more restrictive gender and cultural norms. Firms managed by women demonstrate a 15 percent higher average return on capital compared to firms managed by men, indicating the potential benefits of increased access to credit for women-led businesses. These findings emphasize the importance of addressing gender-specific constraints to accessing finance and promoting gender-inclusive policies to enhance firm growth and reduce capital misallocation.
Trade promotion organisations in the pandemic world
(Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group, 2025-07-28) Choi, Yewon; Fernandes, Ana; Grover, Arti; Iacovone, Leonardo; Olarreaga, Marcelo
A 2021–22 Survey of Trade Promotion Organisations (TPOs) conducted by the World Bank to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their functioning uncovers significant heterogeneity in TPOs’ characteristics across countries, but also income levels. This led to different responses to the pandemic in terms of changes in TPOs’ budgets, the adoption of a COVID recovery plan, and the implementation of virtual programs to help exporters. High-income countries experienced higher increases in budget and were more likely to adopt COVID recovery plans and virtual tools than low-income countries. Using the gravity model, we find that the behaviour of TPOs in high-income countries was correlated with higher exports.
Digitalization, Remote Work and Firm Resilience: Evidence from the COVID-19 Shock
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-16) Constantinescu , Cristina; Grover, Arti; Nayyar, Gaurav
Using Business Pulse Survey data for 61 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper presents novel findings on remote work, enabled by digitalization, as a source of resilience for firms. The results suggest the following. First, firms in sectors with greater amenability to remote work experienced a smaller adverse impact of the pandemic in countries with better digital infrastructure. Second, these effects apply to both exporting and non-exporting firms. Third, there are differences across sectors. Among firms in the manufacturing sector, the benefits of remote work in countries with better digital infrastructure accrue more to exporters relative to non-exporters, thereby reflecting a premium to exporting. This exporting premium is not observed in the service sector, which largely comprises firms in non-knowledge intensive services in the sample. Fourth, the effects of the amenability to work remotely in countries with better digital infrastructure do not dissipate over time.
Firm Adaptation to Climate Risk in the Developing World
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-11) Grover, Arti; Kahn, Matthew E.
How firms in the developing world adapt to changes in weather extremes will play a key role in determining their nation’s economic growth. This survey of the recent microeconomics adaptation literature suggests that although firm competitiveness is negatively affected by weather events, firms may bounce back better under certain conditions. The adaptation and resilience of firms to climate change depend on their capabilities, the available information on risks, and the depth of insurance and financial markets. As real-time weather forecasting improves, firms are better informed about these risks and this affects their decisions regarding their location, production, and configuration of supply chains. A firm’s resilience also depends on the quality of public investment in infrastructure and the social safety net. Understanding that market frictions can slow the pace of adaptation, the paper concludes with some insights on the options available to policy makers.
Which Firms Drive the Gains from Connectivity and Competition? : The Impact of India’s Golden Quadrilateral across the Firm Life Cycle
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-02-26) Grover, Arti; Maloney, William F.; O'Connell,Stephen A.
This paper uses the construction of India's Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) highway to explore the impact of an exogenous increase in market access and competition across the firm life cycle and generates four findings. First, while exit rates fall for all plants, aggregate gains are driven by expansion of young plants. Older plants stagnate or contract, consistent with the challenges of increased competition for incumbents. Second, the benefits of connectivity to young plants depend on access to complementary factors, such as finance, and business conditions, although older plants respond better in more distorted districts, perhaps reflecting access to inputs while protecting output markets as in de Loecker et al. (2016). Third, expanding young plants correspond to capital intensive value chain embedded activities that do not require close coordination with final producers. Fourth, plant-level panel data confirms plant capabilities as central to both the magnitude of the response, and to the composition of plants driving it. Aggregate expansion among young plants is driven by high skill plants while contraction of old plants is driven by low skill plants, consistent with frontier firms being able to escape competition (Aghion et al. 2014).
Do Shocks Perpetuate Disparities within and across Informal Firms?: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Asia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-10-04) Grover, Arti; Pereira-López, Mariana
Using three rounds of data from the Business Pulse Survey in South Asia, this paper studies the differential effects of the COVID-19 shock on informal firms. It also captures heterogeneity within informal firms based on the degree and motivation of informality. The findings suggest that the severity of the impact of the COVID-19 shock and the recovery speed are strongly associated with the degree of informality. Firms' external attributes, such as size, sector, age, and gender of the owner, do not explain the depth of the impact. Internal characteristics such as poor management capabilities and education of the manager and owners are strong predictors of vulnerability among informal firms. In particular, necessity firms experience a larger drop in sales relative to the parasitic type of informal firms. To add to this, the adjustment response (for example, the use of digital platforms) of informal firms is smaller, which perpetuates the gap between formal and informal firms. Within informal firms, the parasitic type typically have a smaller adjustment response. These findings have implications for policies to support the private sector in the presence of informality, including considerations pertaining to targeting, modality of support, and the instruments required for designing more impactful programs during shocks.
Agglomeration Economies in Developing Countries: A Meta-Analysis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07) Timmis, Jonathan; Grover, Arti; Lall, Somik V.
Recent empirical work suggests that there are large agglomeration gains from working and living in developing country cities. These estimates find that doubling city size is associated with an increase in productivity by 19 percent in China, 12 percent in India, and 17 percent in Africa. These agglomeration benefits are considerably higher relative to developed country cities, which are in the range of 4 to 6 percent. However, many developing country cities are costly, crowded, and disconnected, and face slow structural transformation. To understand the true productivity advantages of cities in developing countries, this paper systematically evaluates more than 1,200 elasticity estimates from 70 studies in 33 countries. Using a frontier methodology for conducting meta-analysis, it finds that the elasticity estimates in developing countries are at most 1 percentage point higher than in advanced economies, but not significantly so. The paper provides novel estimates of the elasticity of pollution, homicide, and congestion, using a large sample of developing and developed country cities. No evidence is found for productivity gains in light of the high and increasing costs of working in developing country cities.