"This report is part of a wider study that aims to unpack the contribution of Gender Lens Investing in women’s economic empowerment, and builds on the existing literature on the understanding of the finance gap for women-owned enterprises in developing countries. It is based on insights gathered from 200+ women entrepreneurs across Kenya, Rwanda, India and Indonesia. While analysing the factors affecting access to finance for women entrepreneurs, the report touches upon its effect on their lives in terms of impact on their agency, bargaining power, ability to challenge patriarchal attitudes, and financial independence, through examples. The report posits a segmentation framework to bring out the differentiated characteristics, needs and challenges of women-owned businesses businesses."

"We study the effects of explosive growth in the Bangladeshi ready-made garments industry on the lives on Bangladeshi women. We compare the marriage, childbearing, school enrollment and employment decisions of women who gain greater access to garment sector jobs to women living further away from factories, to years before the factories arrive close to some villages, and to the marriage and enrollment decisions of their male siblings. Girls exposed to the garment sector delay marriage and childbirth. This stems from (a) young girls becoming more likely to be enrolled in school after garment jobs (which reward literacy and numeracy) arrive, and (b) older girls becoming more likely to be employed outside the home in garment-proximate villages. The demand for education generated through manufacturing growth appears to have a much larger effect on female educational attainment compared to a large-scale government conditional cash transfer program to encourage female schooling."

"Nos últimos 10 anos do investimento de impacto no Brasil, temos observado um desenvolvimento significativo do tema. Este estudo do setor no Brasil revela um significativo crescimento do mercado. Dezenove dos maiores investidores de impacto brasileiros pesquisados, incluindo gestores de fundos, bancos, fundações, empresas familiares e outros, esperam dedicar 40% a 50% mais capital ao investimento de impacto em 2014, em comparação com 2013."

"During the past 10 years of impact investing in Brazil, we have observed a significant development in the impact investing space.

This market study of the impact investing sector in Brazil reveals significant market growth. Nineteen of Brazil's largest impact investors, including fund managers, banks, foundations, family offices and others surveyed expect to commit 40% to 50% more capital to impact investments in 2014 compared to 2013."

"Understanding the performance of accelerators is important to a wide range of individuals and organizations: participating startups, accelerator managers and staff, investors, partners, donors, funders, and policymakers. Each of these stakeholders may have different priorities and objectives in their efforts to measure accelerators' performance and impact. This brief identifies considerations and potential metrics for evaluating accelerator performance. In addition to metrics related to the accelerator itself, it includes measures that assess the performance of startups, and changes in the regions in which accelerators are located."

"This report outlines impact investors' approaches to achieving responsible exits, drawing insights from interviews with more than 30 investors and entrepreneurs and a review of existing resources on the topic. Four case studies of various exit methods as applied to investments in a natural gas conversion company, a microfinance institution, land conservation, and a microinsurance provider highlight the various effective practices and lessons that investors have discovered when working with investees and co-investors to align capital structures, buyers, and business models to ensure continued impact post-exit."

"Aid providers often describe small firms as 'job creators'. But what types of jobs do they create? Drawing on enterprise survey data for nine African countries and panel data for Ethiopia we find that small and large formal sector firms create similar numbers of net jobs. Small firms, however, have much higher turnover of employment and pay persistently lower wages. To create more 'good' jobs aid should target the constraints to the growth of firms of all sizes. Improving the 'investment climate' and new programs to increase firms' capabilities - through, for example, management training - offer greater prospects for employment creation."

"There is growing consensus that a key difference between the U.S. and developing economies is that the latter exhibit slower employment growth over the life cycle of the average business. At the same time, the rapid post entry growth in the U.S. is driven by an "up or out dynamic". We track manufacturing establishments in Colombia vs. the US and find that slower average life cycle growth in Colombia is driven by a less enthusiastic contribution of extraordinary growth plants and less dynamic selection of young underperforming plants. As a consequence, the size distribution of nonmicro plants exhibits more concentration in small-old plants in Colombia, both in unweighted and employment-weighted bases. These findings point to a shortage of high-growth entrepreneurship and a relatively high likelihood of long-run survival for small, likely unproductive plants, as two key elements at the heart of the development problem. An extreme concentration of resources in micro plants is the other distinguishing feature of the Colombian manufacturing sector vis a vis the US."

"A quantitative analysis of our portfolio covering 11 years and 160+ borrowers from around the world revealed that, on average, companies with the highest female representation in board and leadership positions outperformed those with the least. The results suggest that the percentage of women in leadership positions is especially important to financial performance. We also share practical guidance for investors on how to adopt a gender lens. As practitioners who have developed our own gender-lens strategy over the past seven years, we can speak to the confusion, the evolution, and ultimately, the rewards, of incorporating gender into investment analysis."

"This paper presents the preliminary results of our ongoing study of corrective policy intervention in cluster-based industrial development. At the center of this study is a field experiment that we are conducting in a knitwear cluster in Ha Noi (previously Ha Tay) and a rolled steal cluster in Bac Ninh in Vietnam. In these clusters, we conducted baseline surveys of firms from April to July 2010 and then provided classroom training programs for entrepreneurs in June to August of the same year. The evaluation of the training impacts is expected to reveal whether entrepreneurs in clusters possess basic knowledge of management before the training, what characterizes the entrepreneurs who are more willing and able to absorb new knowledge, whether the training can change entrepreneurs' attitudes toward learning management knowledge, how much entrepreneurs can learn from a short-period training program, and whether the benefit of the training program exceeds its cost, among others."