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Highlights • The paper employs newly constructed structural reform indexes that focus on reforms "genuinely" implemented. • Reforms under consideration increase productivity growth, with real sector reforms having the most sizeable effects. • The pace of reforms matters since being a "strong reformer" is associated with clear productivity dividends. • The relationship between reforms and productivity is nonlinear and shaped by certain firms' characteristics. • There are complementary effects between reforms except for trade and financial reforms. Abstract This paper assesses the effects of selected structural reforms on labor productivity growth for 37 developing countries over the 2006–14 period. It combines newly constructed reform indexes using the IMF Monitoring of Fund Arrangements dataset and firm-level productivity from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. The paper highlights the following results. Structural reforms under consideration in this study, i.e., financial, fiscal, real sector, and trade reforms, significantly improve productivity at the firm level. Interestingly, real sector reforms have the most sizeable effects on firms' productivity. The relationship between reforms and productivity is nonlinear and shaped by certain firms' characteristics, including financial access, a distortionary environment, and firms' size. The pace of reforms matters since being a "strong reformer" is associated with a clear productivity dividend for firms. Finally, except for financial and trade reforms, all macroeconomic reforms considered are bilaterally complementary in improving firms' productivity. The findings are robust to several sensitivity checks including alternatives measure of productivity, and a counterfactual experiment based on unsuccessful reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper analyzes Colombia׳s space policy: its successes, its failures and what it still needs to achieve. The paper examines the interaction among the different players, and how this policy contributes to economic and social development of the country. And postulates that, unless a real national plan of action, with specific milestones and budget as well as a managing agency are developed, this policy may be in danger of disappearing. The Colombian Space Commission (Comisión Colombiana del Espacio, or CCE) was created by Presidential Decree 2442 in 2006. It is a multi-sectorial entity, in charge of coordinating, planning, and leading in the implementation of national policies for the development and application of space technologies. The CCE was also charged with the drafting of plans and programs in this field. The CCE began with only a few members (15) and today is comprised of 47 members: 13 ministries, 4 administrative departments, another 21 governmental entities and 9 universities, the latter acting as consultants. The Vice-President of the Republic is the President of the CCE. These different actors gave great importance to the development of Colombia׳s space sector, and 6 years later, they are continuing support and development the country׳s space policy. This analysis takes into account three aspects: first, achieving the objectives of the CCE: the creation and development of a national space policy for Colombia; secondly, focussing on “target groups” and “end users”; and thirdly, the “outcomes” or achievements to date. Some conclusions are worth highlighting: first, the warm reception and support of the CCE by both the public and private sectors on high levels, but the poor knowledge of the national space policy by the Colombian people and the small and medium companies. Secondly, in the context of public policy [9], the strategic plan called “National Policy in regard to Space Activities”, is caught between two phases: the formulation and decision-making regarding the program, and its implementation. And finally, the members of the CCE do not necessarily act in accordance with a national strategy, but follow their own interests, resulting in undue influence (and perhaps interference) in the development of a coherent national space policy. In brief, the author hopes that this first analysis of Colombia׳s experience with its Space Commission will serve as an example to other developing countries that also are seeking to develop their space sector, and implement a national space policy. Further, the author hopes that this analysis will allow the various politico-administrative actors “policy makers” in Colombia, as well as the general public, to realize that, while much has been accomplished, much still remains to be done. It is essential to keep alive the interest shown in space activities; otherwise, Colombia׳s space policy may become an “endangered species”, in danger of failing and disappearing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The objective of this research is to identify Small Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) Characteristics in Batam Free Trade Zone that have the ability to acquire debt. Sampling method used in this research is purposive sampling method. 79 selected samples were taken from SME that located in Batam during 2008-2009. The methods used for analysis were comparison analysis and logistic regression model. The result of this research indicates that firm size, firm growth, firm location, foreign shareholder involvement, type of industry, export activities, and educational background of top manager at SME in Batam have significant correlations to the SME''s ability to acquire a debt. The ability to acquire debt by SME in Batam is positively related to location, export activities and manager education but negatively related to size, growth, foreign shareholder and type of industry. The firm age and development strategy seems to have no significant impact on the SME''s ability to acquire debt. The groups which are SME''s using debt and not using debt can be distinguished by Mean Difference Analysis for independent samples. Based on the analysis, we concluded that firm location, export activities, background educational, foreign shareholder and firm size were the differentiating factors between two groups. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We approach the size distribution of business firms by proposing an analogy of the firms’ ranking with a boson gas, identifying the annual revenue of the firms with energy. We found that Bose–Einstein statistics fits very well to the empirical cumulative distribution function for the firms’ ranking for different countries. The fitted values for the temperature-like parameter are compared between countries and with an index of economic development, and we found that our results support the hypothesis that the temperature of the economy can be associated with the level of economic development of a country. Moreover, for most of the countries the value obtained for the fugacity-like parameter is close to 1, suggesting that the analogy could correspond to a photon gas in which the number of particles is not conserved; this is indeed the case for real-world firms’ dynamics, where new firms arrive in the economy and other firms disappear, either by merging with others or through bankruptcy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is part of increasing the business income in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. • CSR targeting economic results taking into account the economic, social and environmental dimensions at once time. • To turn CSR into tangible benefits, MSMEs must carry out CSR practices acting in all three dimensions simultaneously. • CSR is not exclusive to large businesses, but firm size determines the size of the impact of the CSR on the results. • The larger the firm size, the stronger the relationship between CSR and economic performance. Corporate social responsibility (hereafter, CSR) continues to be generally relevant, with growing interest from academic researchers, businesspeople, public administrations and society as a whole. Numerous works have studied the influence of CSR on economic performance (hereafter, EP) in large businesses, but very few studies have focused on micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). This study analyzes the moderating effect of firm size on the influence of CSR actions on the economic performance of MSMEs. This work has two purposes: first, to empirically test the "social impact" hypothesis of stakeholder theory, which assumes that CRS positively impacts EP; second, to analyze the moderating effect of the MSME size on this hypothesis. The results obtained using the PLS-SEM technique based on a sample of 278 Spanish firms confirm that MSMEs that carry out CSR activities in their economic, social and environmental aspects improve their economic performance, and this relationship is moderated by the size of these organizations; the larger the size is, the stronger the relationship is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]