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Bayesian inference has gained popularity in the last half of the twentieth century thanks to the wider applications in numerous fields such as economics, finance, physics, engineering, life sciences, environmental studies, and so forth. In this paper, we studied some key benefits of Bayesian inference and how they can be used in predicting loan default in the banking sector. Various traditional classification techniques are also presented to draw comparisons primarily in terms of the ease of interpretability and model performance. This paper includes the use of non-informative priors to attempt to arrive to the convergence of posterior distribution. Finally, with the Bayesian techniques proven to be an alternative to the classical approaches, the paper attempted to demonstrate that Bayesian techniques are indeed powerful in financial data analytics and applications.

East Asia and the Pacific is a region of dynamic growth. Women have contributed significantly to this growth and have benefited from it through active participation in the labor market. However, women are still disproportionately represented in the informal sector and in low paid work. Efforts to identify barriers to women's business and entrepreneurial activities in the region are critical not only to facilitate inclusive growth in a national context but also to counter the increasing trend of female migratory flows in the region. This report highlights' both the challenges and the economic opportunities for businesswomen in the region offers some useful potential pointers for reform.

Banking the Poor explores level and determinants of financial access in 54 countries, mostly in Africa. It collects information from two sources: central banks and leading commercial banks in each surveyed country. It explores associations between countries' banking policies and practices and their levels of financial access, measured in terms of the numbers of bank account per thousand adults. It builds on the previous work measuring financial access through information from regulators, from banks, and also from users' perspectives in household surveys.

This report is part of a broader effort by the World Bank Group to understand the motives and challenges of small entrepreneurs in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS). The report's key finding is that, compared to entrepreneurs elsewhere, entrepreneurs in FCS have different characteristics, face significantly different challenges, and thus may be subject to different incentives and have different motives. Therefore, it is recommended that both the current analytical approach and the operational strategy of the World Bank be informed by the findings that follow. The report summarizes findings of recent World Bank Enterprise Surveys (ES) conducted across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Asia, and the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Region as well as Doing Business indicators and additional World Bank Group studies and field observations. The report finds that the majority of entrepreneurs in FCS countries are small, informal, and concentrated in the trade/services sectors. According to the ES, and after controlling for the level of development (that is, GDP per capita): 1) the average FCS firm in SSA and the ECA Region produces less output than non-FCS firms; 2) the average FCS firm in ECA is by 20 percent less likely to innovate (that is, to introduce/upgrade new products and services) than its non-FCS counterpart; and 3) FCS firms start smaller and grow significantly more slowly, or even shrink (in the number of employees) over time, compared to non-FCS firms in the Regions analyzed. The report also highlights the differences in sector and business environment characteristics between FCS and non-FCS business environments.

Although access to financing in Pakistan is expanding quickly, it is two to four times lower than regional benchmarks. Half of Pakistani adults, mostly women, do not engage with the financial system at all, and only 14 percent have access to formal services. Credit for small- and medium-size enterprises is rationed by the financial system. The formal microfinance sector reaches less than 2 percent of the poor, as opposed to more than 25 percent in neighboring countries. Yet it is the micro- and small businesses, along with remittances, that help families escape the poverty trap and participate in the economy. 'Bringing Finance to Pakistan's Poor' is based on a pioneering and comprehensive survey and dataset that measures the access to financial products by Pakistani households. The survey included 10,305 households in all areas of the country, excluding the tribal regions. The accompanying CD contains summary statistics. The authors develop a picture of access to and usage of financial services across the country and across different population groups, and they identify policy and regulatory priorities. Reform measures in Pakistan have been timely, but alone are not enough; financial institutions have lagged behind in adopting technology, segmenting customer bases, diversifying products, and simplifying processes and procedures. Gender bias and low levels of financial literacy remain barriers, as is geographical remoteness. However, the single strongest cause of low financial access is lack of income—not location, education, or even gender. 'Bringing Finance to Pakistan's Poor' will be of great interest to readers working in the areas of business and finance, economic policy, gender and rural development, and microfinance.

When a company decides to automate its business processes by means of RPA (Robotic Process Automation), there are two fundamental questions that need to be answered. Firstly, what activities should the company automate and what characteristics make them suitable for RPA. The aim of the presented research is to design and demonstrate a data-driven performance framework assessing the impact of RPA implementation using process mining (PPAFR). Firstly, we comment on and summarise existing trends in process mining and RPA. Secondly, we describe research objectives and methods following the Design Science Research Methodology. Then, we identify critical factors for RPA implementation and design process stages of PPAFR. We demonstrate the design on real data from a loan application process. The demonstration consists of a process discovery using process mining methods, process analysis, and process simulation with assessment of RPA candidates. Based on the research results, a redesign of the process is proposed with emphasis on RPA implementation. Finally, we discuss the usefulness of PPAFR by helping companies to identify potentially suitable activities for RPA implementation and not overestimating potential gains. Obtained results show that within the loan application process, waiting times are the main causes of extended cases. If the waiting times are generated internally, it will be much easier for the company to address them. If the automation is focused mainly on processing times, the impact of automation on the overall performance of the process is insignificant or very low. Moreover, the research identified several characteristics which have to be considered when implementing RPA due to the impact on the overall performance of the process.

Nigeria's Vision 2020 has expressed a bold desire for the country to be among the world's top 20 economies by the year 2020. The economy has posted impressive growth figures since 2003, driven by higher oil revenues and a series of home-grown economic reforms. The country is now firmly on the road to middle-income status. But what else do government and the private sector need to do to create the jobs and growth that will underpin the national development strategy? What are the challenges that Nigeria's businesses face today? 'An Assessment of the Investment Climate in Nigeria' provides answers to these questions. Based on a survey of 2,300 companies, it provides evidence-based recommendations designed to support Vision 2020 and the president's seven-point agenda. The authors find that government must move quickly to create jobs and reduce poverty. Key challenges include a desperate shortage of energy and a poor transportation network, as well as low levels of education and continuing unrest in the Niger delta. In addition, Nigeria's workers need to become more productive in order to compete in a globalized economy. As a matter of fact, they are less productive than workers in more dynamic countries, such as Brazil, China, and Kenya. Improving productivity will require simultaneous efforts to foster competition, improve specific aspects of the business environment, and facilitate better management and training within individual firms. In addition to the issues of productivity, Nigeria's best firms have not been able to expand their market share. Consequently, policy makers need to address and elimate obstacles to competition, including barriers to entry, convoluted taxation, property registration, and licensing.

The aim of this paper is to study the determinants of bank loan applications and financial access of small and medium enterprises from 2013 to 2015. We applied binary and ordered logit models to a sample of 27.811 firms from 37 countries from the Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE). We provided evidence that larger firms and those belonging to the industry sector are more likely to apply for and obtain bank loans. A puzzling result was found regarding the matter of innovation. It is relevant for both application and access to bank loans, but in opposite ways: innovation boosts external finance applications but hampers actual financial access. Furthermore, the use of retained earnings enhances financial application and the effective financial access. This could indicate that internal funds are complementary, rather than substitutes in the firms' financial structure. The results of the study are relevant to improve policies of SMEs access to finance in the European context.

Peer-to-peer lending, as an alternative to classic bank loans, has become popular all over the world. On the basis of the conceptual characteristics, it can be expected that loans should be more advantageous from the view of costs. But as the studies describe, there are significant differences due to the factors, which can be affected by borrowers with the aim to get funded. We have examined the role of the particular factors, as part of provided data by borrowers for the decision-making process by investors in the dataset from the peer-to-peer lending website Bondora, managed by the Estonian company Isepankur. With the method of the multinomial logistic regression model, we described the importance of borrowers’ decisions and their effects on funding results. The debt to income rate is the most significant variable and the highest negative impact is reached by the home ownership type variable. There are 28 factors with a nonnegative impact and 20 factors have a negative influence. Comparison of these findings to other studies enable us to describe the impacts of the social identity data and information about the loan for investors, within the peer-to- peer lending market environment.

Women are a powerful force for sustainable economic growth. A growing body of microeconomic empirical evidence and emerging macroeconomic analysis shows that gender inequality limits economic growth in developing economies. Research also shows that considerable potential for economic growth could be realized if countries support women's full economic participation. Increases in women's income tend to correlate with greater expenditure on family welfare and children, because women often spend a greater share of their income on their children's nutrition, health care, and education. From an economic perspective, removing gender biases and maintaining a level playing field reduces possible market distortions or malfunctioning. Moreover, promoting women's participation in business may bolster women's overall participation in the labor market, because women-owned businesses are more likely to employ other women. This report analyzes the main reasons for this disparity in the Arab Republic of Egypt and proposes solutions to level the playing field and enable women's full economic contributions. The Investment Climate Survey (ICS) of 1,156 enterprises from the manufacturing sector was carried out in October 2008, using the World Bank standard methodology. The recall questionnaire of 566 enterprises was conducted in October 2008. The gender workers module was conducted in August 2005. It sampled about 15 full-time workers from each firm covered by the ICS recall survey. About 70 percent of the ICS sample is made up of small and medium firms, about 85 percent of which are owned by individuals or families. Large firms employing more than 150 workers account for about 30 percent of the sample. In about 35 percent of the sample, a woman is a main shareholder; in 15 percent of these firms, women own the majority of the firm.