Small Firms and the Environment in Developing Countries

Small Firms and the Environment in Developing Countries
Author: Allen Blackman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2010-09-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136525920

Small firms - including 'microenterprises' and 'small and medium enterprises' (SMEs) - play a vital economic role in developing countries. They typically provide half of all jobs. In addition, they foster entrepreneurship and help key sectors adapt to changing market conditions. In light of these benefits, programs promoting small firms have become a cornerstone of economic development policy. Increasingly, however, scholars and policymakers are also exploring the link between small firms and the environment. The first compendium of research and policy analysis on this topic, this book is organized around three questions: How important is small firm pollution? Will forcing small firms to comply with environmental regulations exacerbate unemployment and poverty? And what policy options are available to control small firm pollution? Eleven case studies from China, Ecuador, Honduras, India, Malaysia, and Mexico address these questions. They compare the environmental damages caused by small firms and large ones. They explore the positive and negative economic consequences of pollution control strategies focusing on small firms, the administrative challenges of regulating thousands of firms which are often unregistered and unknown to the government, and they describe innovative approaches for persuading small firms to implement effective pollution controls. The case studies cover a variety of industrial sectors including ceramics, leather tanning, textiles, and agro-industry, and evaluate a wide range of environmental management strategies that include encouraging collective action among small firms, creating economic incentives for pollution control, and helping small firms adopt clean technologies and environmental management systems. Many of the chapters are groundbreaking, addressing topics new to the literature?for example, the role of international trade in greening small firms, and funding small firm pollution control projects by linking them to efforts to stem global warming. Highly readable, Small Firms and the Environment in Developing Countries is a valuable text for courses in development policy and economics that have an environmental component or focus. It will also prove of interest to development workers, policymakers in developing countries, and students and scholars of environmental policy and law.

Making It Big

Making It Big
Author: Andrea Ciani
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2020-10-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464815585

Economic and social progress requires a diverse ecosystem of firms that play complementary roles. Making It Big: Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms constitutes one of the most up-to-date assessments of how large firms are created in low- and middle-income countries and their role in development. It argues that large firms advance a range of development objectives in ways that other firms do not: large firms are more likely to innovate, export, and offer training and are more likely to adopt international standards of quality, among other contributions. Their particularities are closely associated with productivity advantages and translate into improved outcomes not only for their owners but also for their workers and for smaller enterprises in their value chains. The challenge for economic development, however, is that production does not reach economic scale in low- and middle-income countries. Why are large firms scarcer in developing countries? Drawing on a rare set of data from public and private sources, as well as proprietary data from the International Finance Corporation and case studies, this book shows that large firms are often born large—or with the attributes of largeness. In other words, what is distinct about them is often in place from day one of their operations. To fill the “missing top†? of the firm-size distribution with additional large firms, governments should support the creation of such firms by opening markets to greater competition. In low-income countries, this objective can be achieved through simple policy reorientation, such as breaking oligopolies, removing unnecessary restrictions to international trade and investment, and establishing strong rules to prevent the abuse of market power. Governments should also strive to ensure that private actors have the skills, technology, intelligence, infrastructure, and finance they need to create large ventures. Additionally, they should actively work to spread the benefits from production at scale across the largest possible number of market participants. This book seeks to bring frontier thinking and evidence on the role and origins of large firms to a wide range of readers, including academics, development practitioners and policy makers.

Small Firms and the Environment in Developing Countries

Small Firms and the Environment in Developing Countries
Author: Allen Blackman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2010-09-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136525912

Small firms - including 'microenterprises' and 'small and medium enterprises' (SMEs) - play a vital economic role in developing countries. They typically provide half of all jobs. In addition, they foster entrepreneurship and help key sectors adapt to changing market conditions. In light of these benefits, programs promoting small firms have become a cornerstone of economic development policy. Increasingly, however, scholars and policymakers are also exploring the link between small firms and the environment. The first compendium of research and policy analysis on this topic, this book is organized around three questions: How important is small firm pollution? Will forcing small firms to comply with environmental regulations exacerbate unemployment and poverty? And what policy options are available to control small firm pollution? Eleven case studies from China, Ecuador, Honduras, India, Malaysia, and Mexico address these questions. They compare the environmental damages caused by small firms and large ones. They explore the positive and negative economic consequences of pollution control strategies focusing on small firms, the administrative challenges of regulating thousands of firms which are often unregistered and unknown to the government, and they describe innovative approaches for persuading small firms to implement effective pollution controls. The case studies cover a variety of industrial sectors including ceramics, leather tanning, textiles, and agro-industry, and evaluate a wide range of environmental management strategies that include encouraging collective action among small firms, creating economic incentives for pollution control, and helping small firms adopt clean technologies and environmental management systems. Many of the chapters are groundbreaking, addressing topics new to the literature?for example, the role of international trade in greening small firms, and funding small firm pollution control projects by linking them to efforts to stem global warming. Highly readable, Small Firms and the Environment in Developing Countries is a valuable text for courses in development policy and economics that have an environmental component or focus. It will also prove of interest to development workers, policymakers in developing countries, and students and scholars of environmental policy and law.

Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the Environment

Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the Environment
Author: Ruth Hillary
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 442
Release: 2017-09-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351282824

This book tackles a largely neglected topic: small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their environmental impact. Over 90% of all firms are SMEs. Their importance to the health of national and international economies is recognized. But what of their environmental impact? Individually, this may be small but, collectively, they pose a huge and largely unregulated threat to national and indeed the global environment. There have been many failed attempts to engage SMEs in environmental stewardship. Why is this? And where are the success stories needed to set best-practice examples? Environmental protection is widely touted as being a win-win scenario for business with economic spin-offs in terms of energy and waste reduction quickly producing payback for capital expenditures. Why is the "good environmental management equals good business management" message not getting through? In Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the Environment Dr Ruth Hillary brings together an outstanding international collection of experts from government, international and national support agencies, academics and the business community to present arguments about the key environmental business imperatives facing the small-firm sector. The book is divided into four sections:Attitudes and Perceptions of Small Firms to the Environment and SustainabilityEnvironmental Management in the Smaller FirmPractical Strategies for Reaching SMEsCase Studies from around the World. In these sections, the book examines the threats – such as trade, supply chain issues and legislative compliance – but is also solution-oriented, with considerable discussion of the management tools smaller firms can use to improve their environmental performance. It aims to provide practical strategies for smaller firms and to that end includes a range of informative case studies from around the world. Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the Environment is the most comprehensive book on the subject available and will prove invaluable not only to SMEs themselves, seeking to understand a rapidly changing world, but to consultants and small-business advisors, local and central government and to all those in academia looking for ways to improve the environmental performance of small businesses.

Small Firms and Economic Development in Developed and Transition Economies

Small Firms and Economic Development in Developed and Transition Economies
Author: David A. Kirby
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2017-11-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351755137

This title was first published in 2003. Since the late 1970s there has been considerable interest in the role of small firms in economic development in general and employment generation in particular. Throughout the developed world, governments have introduced a range of measures to encourage small firm growth and development in an attempt to stimulate economic growth, generate employment and foster innovation. Though not all measures have been successful many policies have transferred to the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe where, since 1989, small firm growth and development has achieved considerable importance in economic restructuring. Accordingly, this volume presents the leading research on the role of small firms in economic development and employment generation in both transition and developed countries. Setting itself in a wider theoretical context, the book also considers the implications for both policy and theory and suggests directions for future research.

Firm Size and the Business Environment

Firm Size and the Business Environment
Author: Mirjam Schiffer
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2001-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780821350034

The development of the small and medium enterprise sector is deemed crucial for economic growth and poverty alleviation. Such firms are often though to be at a disadvantage when compared with larger enterprises, but the reverse can apply, for example in the more flexible approach of the smaller firm. This paper draws on a private sector survey in 80 countries examining whether business obstacles are related to firm size. It finds a bias against small firms, which experience significantly greater problems than large firms with financing, taxes and regulations, inflation, corruption and street crime. These problems should be the prime targets of policies aimed at reducing inequity.

Upgrading Clusters and Small Enterprises in Developing Countries

Upgrading Clusters and Small Enterprises in Developing Countries
Author: Jose Antonio Puppim de Oliveira
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2016-02-24
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1317004124

SME's are acknowledged as effective sources of jobs and incomes, gaining an important position in the development agenda, subsequently 'cluster' policies were conceived as a framework to augment the effects of SMEs and to optimize resources used to support them. Based on case studies from Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and India, this volume examines SME clusters and argues that unless they counteract common problems such as very low wages, poor working conditions, poor quality products and lack or environmental regulation, they will be pushed out of the market and so become unsustainable. This book suggests that the SME clusters currently being stretched should react by 'socially upgrading' in order to improve their innovation capacity, as well as social, environmental and labour standards. It puts forward conceptual frameworks which explain the way firms can upgrade: through markets, interaction among cluster members, through Corporate Social Responsibility and other such public policy, and through the better enforcement of regulation.

Inclusive Global Value Chains

Inclusive Global Value Chains
Author: Ana Paula Cusolito
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2016-08-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464808430

This report's focus is making global value chains (GVCs) more inclusive. To achieve inclusiveness is by overcoming participation constraints for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and facilitation access for Low Income Developing Countries (LIDCs). The underlying assumption is that most firms in LIDCs are SMEs. Even larger firms in LIDCs are likely to face similar challenges to SMEs, including a less supportive domestic operating environment and weaker institutions that lead to higher fixed costs and challenges to compete on the international markets. The two major points of this report are (1) participation in GVCs is heterogeneous and uneven, across and within countries, and (2) available data and survey-based evidence suggest that SMEs’ participation in GVCs is mostly taking place through indirect contribution to exports, rather than through exporting directly. The report makes the case that policy action, at the national and multilateral level, can make a difference in achieving more inclusive GVCs through: a holistic approach to reform spanning trade, investment, and domestic policies countries and investments in expanding the statistical base and analysis of GVCs and in sharing knowledge on best practices on enabling policies and programs. The report elaborates on three broad areas of recommendations: (1) establishing a trade and investment action plan for inclusiveness defining clear and achievable objectives on trade and investment policy and identifying the necessary complementary domestic policy actions; (2) complementing trade, investment, and domestic policy actions by providing the needed political leadership and support to enhance collaboration across the sectors, and establishing global platforms for sharing best practices; and (3) providing political support for the establishment of a multi-year plan to expand and upgrade the statistical foundation necessary to increase the capacity of all countries to identify and implement policies that can contribute to stronger, more inclusive and sustainable growth and development, globally.

Pathways Out of Poverty

Pathways Out of Poverty
Author: Gary S. Fields
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2003-10-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780821354049

How private firms contribute to economic mobility and poverty reduction and what governments can do to enhance their contributions is the theme of this book. The positive role (often underemphasized) the private sector plays in economic development is looked at. Also the labour market and how various mechanisms in the economy interact to affect conditions for people as workers and as consumers. The links among the business environment, private sector development, economic growth, poverty reduction and economic mobility are also examined.