UNDERVALUATION AND NEW BUSINESS FORMATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The widespread recognition of new business formation as a facilitator of economic development has generated interest in examining its relevant determinants. In this paper, a rudimentary framework is proposed and empirically tested in which undervaluation of the real exchange rate incentivizes the establishment of new businesses. The goal of the paper is to establish the effect of real exchange rate undervaluation on the formation of new businesses. Using a broad sample of 40 developing countries observed between 2010 and 2018, results from a fixed effects Poisson model finds the evidence supportive of our hypothesis. The results particularly confirm a positive and sizeable effect of real exchange rate undervaluation on the number of newly registered businesses. Additionally, we find this positive effect stronger in countries with reliable energy, human capital, access to finance and efficient transport systems. These findings suggest that exchange rate policies that maintain undervalued exchange rates have an important bearing on business start-ups in developing countries and more so when accompanied by policy efforts to improve human capital, access to finance, efficient transport systems and the supply of reliable energy.