Publication: How does the weather and climate change affect firm performance in low-income countries? Evidence from Uganda
Abstract
This study examines the impacts of weather and climate shocks on firm performance in Uganda, a low-income country that shares many characteristics with countries at similar levels of development. The analysis exploits panel methods on novel quarterly business climate data. The results are threefold. First, weather and climate shocks are negatively associated with business performance. Second, these effects are stronger among micro and small enterprises, and among firms in the agricultural and industrial sectors. Third, poor business environments characterized by excruciating constraints exacerbate the impact of climate shocks on business performance. The results are robust to alternative econometric model specifications.
Link to Data Set
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Citations
- Cited 7 times in Scopus (view citations)
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Constraints or Complaints? Business Climate and Firm Performance Perceptions in Uganda(Taylor and Francis, 2019)This paper identifies the business constraints that are most binding for firm performance. Using panel methods on novel quarterly Ugandan business climate data, we exploit perceived changes in business climate constraints to account for changes in firm performance. Not all identified constraints are binding for firm performance. Macroeconomic instability, demand stability, access to finance, corruption/bribery, and weather variability are found to be binding constraints. Firms’ expectations about future performance outcomes are associated with current perceptions about these constraints, alleviating endogeneity concerns to some extent. While taxation constraints are usually highly ranked, we do not find evidence linking them to firm performance.Publication Will the Crisis Affect the Economic Recovery in Eastern European Countries? Evidence from Firm Level Data(2010-04-01)Two sources of growth are firm learning and innovation. Using a unique panel data for 1,686 firms in six countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Turkey), this paper applies panel data estimators and Juhn-Murphy Pierce decomposition in order to identify the effects of the global economic crisis on sales growth of innovative and young enterprises in Eastern European countries. The results show that innovative and young firms were significantly more affected by the crisis than non innovative and older enterprises. The authors interpret these results as an indication that the achievement of pre-crisis growth rates in those countries may be difficult.Publication Fiscal Vulnerabilities in Low-Income Countries: Evolution, Drivers, and Policies(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-14)The world’s 26 poorest economies—home to about 40 percent of all people who live on less than $2.15 a day—are deeper in debt than at any time since 2006 and increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters and other shocks. Yet international aid as a share of their GDP has dwindled to a two-decade low, starving many of much-needed affordable financing. This study constitutes the first systematic assessment of the causes of chronic fiscal weakness in the very poorest economies—those with annual per capita incomes of less than $1,145 a year. These economies are poorer today on average than they were on the eve of COVID-19, even though the rest of the world has largely recovered. Government debt, on average, now stands at 72 percent of GDP, an 18-year high. Nearly half of these low-income countries (LICs)—twice the number in 2015—are either in debt distress or at high risk of it. Not one of them is at low risk.Publication The Investment Climate and the Firm : Firm-Level Evidence from China(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-03)The importance of a country's "investment climate" for economic growth has recently received much attention. The authors address the general lack of appropriate data for measuring the investment climate and its effects. The authors use a new survey of 1,500 Chinese enterprises in five cities to more precisely define and measure components of the investment climate, highlight the importance of firm-level data for rigorous analysis of the investment climate, and investigate empirically the effects of this comprehensive set of measures on firm performance in China. Overall, their firm-level analysis reveals that the main determinants of firm performance in China are international integration, entry and exit, labor market issues, technology use, and access to external finance.Publication How Did the Great Recession Affect Different Types of Workers? Evidence from 17 Middle-Income Countries(2011-04-01)This paper examines how different types of workers in 17 middle-income countries were affected by labor market retrenchment during the great recession. Impacts on different types of workers varied by country and were only weakly related to the severity of the shock. Among active workers, youth experienced by far the largest adverse impacts on employment, unemployment, and wage employment, particularly relative to older adults. The percentage employment reductions, for example, were greatest for youth in each sector of the economy, as firms reacted to the shock by substituting away from inexperienced workers. Employment rates, as a share of the population, also plummeted for men. Larger drops in male employment were primarily attributable to men's higher initial rate of employment, although men's concentration in the hard-hit industrial sector also played an important role. Within each sector, percentage employment declines were similar for men and women. Added worker effects among women were mild, even among less-educated workers. Differences in labor market outcomes across education groups and urban or rural residence tended to be smaller. These findings bolster the case for targeted support to displaced youth and wage employees. Programs targeted to female and unskilled workers should be undertaken with appropriate caution or empirical support from timely data, as they may not benefit the majority of affected workers.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
No results found.