Women, Business and the Law 2020 is the sixth in a series of studies that analyze laws and regulations affecting women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies. Eight indicators—structured around women’s interactions with the law as they begin, progress through, andend their careers—align with the economicdecisions women make at various stages of their lives. The indicatorsare Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension. Data in Women, Business and the Law 2020 are current as of September 1, 2019. The indicators are used to build evidence of the relationship between legal gender equality and women’s entrepreneurship and employment. By examining the economic decisions women make as they go through different stages of their working lives, as well as the pace of reform over the past two years, Women, Business and the Law makes a contribution to policy discussions about the state of women’s economic opportunities.

Gender inequality is not perpetuated exclusively through differential access to and control over material resources. Gender norms and stereotypes reinforce gendered identities and constrain the behaviour of women and men in ways that lead to inequality.

This document presents a book on Formal and Informal Enterprises in Francophone Africa: Moving Toward a Vibrant Private Sector. This book makes an important contribution to the analysis of the informal sector and how it affects business environments, jobs, institutions, and structural transformation in Francophone Africa. It provides an understanding of the landscape of private entrepreneurship in Africa through its consideration of both formal and informal firms. The authors refute the traditional formal/informal duality hypothesized in the mainstream literature and undertake a thorough analysis of the wide spectrum of private entrepreneurship, between the extremes of complete formality and complete informality. This approach to informality as a continuum provides useful insights into the following issues: How do formal and informal firms cooperate or compete in various value chains, and how does this shape jobs, social protection, and productivity? What are the magnitude and sources of the productivity difference between formal and informal firms, and do the characteristics of firms help to explain this gap? What are the barriers to growth for formal and informal firms, and how can policy contribute to overcoming them? How do the labour regulations, to which formal firms are subjected, affect the share of informal sector jobs? How can policy contribute to nurturing a greater synergy between formal and informal firms?

This document presents a book on Private Sector and Enterprise Development. The book is aimed primarily at the policymaking, research and donor communities and other stakeholders involved in building capacity in PSD and SME policy development who are interested in the MENA region. The analysis in this book draws on PSD-related situation analyses and assessments carried out by a number of international organizations and researchers and attempts to bring together a comprehensive picture of the many factors affecting PSD in the MENA-12 countries and to provide a point-in-time snapshot of the context for PSD and SME development. It further outlines some of the major policy initiatives of the governments to support private sector activity.

This document presents a book on Taxation and Gender Equity. This is the first book to systematically examine gender and taxation within and across countries at different levels of development. It presents original research on the gender equity dimensions of personal income taxes, value-added taxes, excise taxes, and fuel taxes in Argentina, Ghana, India, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa, Uganda and the United Kingdom. This book will be of interest to tax analysts and policymakers, gender analysts and activists, and postgraduate students and researchers studying Public Finance, International Economics, Development Studies, Gender Studies, and International Relations, among other disciplines.