Abstract

The paper explores links between business environment and firm efficiency in Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC). It builds on 105 firms from the World Bank Enterprise Survey which are observed over 2006-2010, that is
the year the first democratic government was installed and five years later, at the end of the political term. The
findings of the paper show that, five years after conflict in DRC, firms’ efficiency rises from 0.0707 to 0.0742
over a scale spanning from 0 to 1. The mean-comparison test indicates that firm’s efficiency in DRC was not
significantly improved five years after democratic election 2010. Over the same period, the Hostility Business
Environment Index (HBEI) rises from 0.4914 to 0.5765. The essential source of that variation was the
deterioration of Business and government relationship. The weight in the index was 28.28% in 2006 against
57.09% in 2010. Using Tobit regression, the study reveals a positive link between hostility business environment
and firm efficiency. Quantile Regression outputs show that only firms able to pay the highest bribes, and thus,
the most efficient profit from those disorders. This counter intuitive result may find an explanation for the
corruption practices used by businesspeople to overcome environment constraint and inefficient barriers.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.