"The business case for gender equality is compelling. It is also widely underutilized. The most commonly cited evidence of the business case highlights two points: first, gender equality strengthens national economies, and, second, investing in women in senior leadership strengthens companies in which they work. While both are essential to making the business case, neither represents the full scope of benefits that can be derived from closing gaps between men and women in the private sector."

"Written by Business for Social Responsibility with support from Women Deliver and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, this report aims to help unlock business opportunities that advance the health, rights, and well-being of women in global value chains. It highlights the benefits of investing in women along the value chain and provides a framework for action and practical guidance for companies to identify and strengthen value-chain investment opportunities that deliver positive returns to business, women, and society."

"This paper investigates the contribution of small firms to employment, job creation, and growth in developing countries. While small firms (< 20 employees) have the smallest share of aggregate employment, the small and medium enterprise sector's (< 100 employees) contribution is comparable to that of large firms. Small firms have the largest shares of job creation, and highest sales growth and employment growth, even after controlling for firm age. Large firms, however, have higher productivity growth. Conditional on size, young firms are the fastest growing and large mature firms have the largest employment shares but small young firms have higher job creation rates."

"Recent research shows that start-ups are important for job creation, but these firms are also inherently volatile. We use linked employer-employee data to examine the relative importance of firm age and firm size for job creation and destruction in Brazil. Firm age is a more important determinant of job creation in Brazil than firm size; young firms and star-ups create a relatively high number of jobs. However, young firms are also more likely to exit the market and have higher levels of employment volatility. We, therefore, condition the job creation analysis on job stability. Young firms and large firms create relatively more stable jobs in Brazil."

"We evaluate a technology entrepreneurship training program by comparing career decisions among applicants accepted into the program with unaccepted applicants who are program finalists. We find that program participation is associated with an increased likelihood of subsequent entrepreneurship but that this is not uniform across participants; the estimated relationship between program participation and subsequent entrepreneurial activity is disproportionately lower for applicants with ex-ante resources and capabilities in entrepreneurship, measured by prior entrepreneurship experience. Moreover, we only observe this reduced impact of the program on subsequent entrepreneurial activity for participants that have prior experience in founding a technology company as opposed to other forms of entrepreneurial activity. This suggests the program is more effective for individuals that have otherwise limited access to technology entrepreneurship opportunities."

"Banks in emerging markets are increasingly providing non-financial services to their SME clients, typically consisting of information sharing, training and consultancy. This study, published by IFC in partnership with the Austrian Government, is the first to explore reasons behind this trend, finding that banks' key motivations include attracting and retaining customers and strengthening portfolio quality. The report consists of an overview followed by case studies of three banks, namely namely Türk Ekonomi Bankasý (TEB), Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), and ICICI Bank."

"Using survey data on Macedonian firms that participated in USAID programs providing technical and financial assistance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and on firms that did not, we estimate the effectiveness of such assistance in increasing the growth of employment in the assisted firms. We control for selection bias in program participation and use both kernel and caliper propensity score matching to estimate the excess growth of employment in assisted firms. We find that assistance programs raised employment growth by 16-20 percentage points in the first year after assistance and by 26-30 points by the third year."

"For this study of Acumen's investments, an initial scan of 22 of Acumen's portfolio companies was conducted, and six of these companies, as well as one non-Acumen company, were selected for in-depth case studies. The case studies span multiple industries and geographies, and explore how these social enterprises are integrating gender into their management systems, operations, and most importantly, how they are engaging women as consumers, and where this engagement has helped improve business and social performance. The report also contains a new framework that outlines the ways in which gender can influence key business decisions. This framework has the potential to be applied broadly as a diagnostic tool to uncover short-, medium-, and long-term opportunities to more effectively integrate gender in ways that will support the business and social goals of these companies."

"Are women less likely to ask for help financing their businesses? This study investigates whether gender is a factor that impacts the propensity to ask for financing among nascent entrepreneurs. We also investigate if start-up helpers, who do not have an ownership share, have an impact on the likelihood of asking for financing, specifically between men and women. Our findings suggest that being female significantly decreases the probability of asking for financing and the presence of start-up helpers significantly increases the incidence of asking for financing in the nascent stage. In addition, among those who created new firms or were still in the start-up process, the number of start-up helpers exponentially increased the incidence of asking for financing among female founders. We use the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II data, the largest, nationally representative, and longitudinal database on nascent entrepreneurs for the United States."

"This report unpacks why women's entrepreneurship is good for business and is essential for economic growth. Small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a key driver of economic growth, and women-owned enterprises account for approximately 30-37 percent (8-10 million) of all SMEs in emerging markets. As such, women are the fastest-growing market segment, they start businesses at a higher rate than men, and it is expected that they will create approximately 50 percent of new small business jobs by 2018. In developing economies, SMEs are increasingly important, as they contribute to nearly half of the labor force."