Determinants of firm level growth and hiring in Myanmar

For much of the last half-century, Myanmar’s economy has developed mostly in self-imposed isolation, during which time government intervention in and regulation of the economy affected firm incentives and performance significantly. The dissertation is based on a unique set of firm level data from 153 companies in Myanmar. The randomized, stratified survey was conducted in conjunction with the one of the country’s leading NGOs and with the approval of the country’s chamber of commerce. The survey contained over 110 different questions covering six major topics, including firm characteristics, firm perceptions of the business environment, labor, capital, finance, and firm performance. Using this data, I will first examine determinants of firm level growth for the 150+ firms based on variables including size, ownership, sector, firm characteristics and a number of proxy measures for a firms connections with government (for example percentage of sales to government). The second section will also focus on firm level growth, but will use perceptions based measures of the business environment as the variables. The third section will examine firm hiring, to determine the characteristics of firms that increase hiring and the types of hiring that occur. The last section will draw on these and the qualitative interviews to posit theories about influences on the structure of the economy and how those could affect firm level growth.