Insights @ CEM Magazine

Osei, Barnard, Derban, and Essuman show that giving rural Ghanaians free, mobile-enabled bank accounts and financial literacy training did not meaningfully increase account use. In a field experiment with 142 participants, only 2 percent used their accounts, typically when required to receive payments. The study found that usage depended less on access or knowledge, and more on income stability and concrete financial needs. These results highlight the limits of standalone literacy interventions and underscore the importance of linking financial inclusion strategies to broader efforts that raise incomes and enable purposeful transactions. For financial tools to work, the conditions for their use must exist.

Li, Cuypers, Ertug, Bapuji, and Liu reveal that not all political connections affect environmental outcomes equally. Using data from 6,758 private Chinese firms, the study finds that ties to national and provincial officials tend to reduce pollution, while ties to local officials often increase it, reflecting different governmental priorities. The authors show how owner's social class and shifts in policy attention further shape these effects. Their findings underscore the need for coordination across government levels and strategic engagement by firms to ensure political ties promote, rather than undermine, sustainability and industrial accountability in emerging markets.

Nason, Vedula, Bothello, Bacq, and Charman explore how entrepreneurs in South Africa's informal economy balance the need to be seen with the risk of exposure. Through fieldwork in Cape Town's Delft township, they introduce the concept of “selective visibility,” showing that entrepreneurs reveal themselves strategically to customers or authorities based on social embeddedness. Older, locally rooted business owners often remain discreet, while younger or migrant entrepreneurs seek community visibility for legitimacy. The study highlights visibility as a calibrated practice rather than a binary choice and calls for policies that de-risk gradual formalization, promote trust, and support context-sensitive growth for informal firms.

Farhad Forbes is Co-Chairman of Forbes Marshall, a privately held engineering company approaching its 80th anniversary, and served two terms as global chair of the Family Business Network International, representing 4,000 family companies across 65 countries. This note is based on Forbes' keynote at CEM's Family Business Summit in October 2025. His message: Family businesses face a dual mandate: managing the business itself while managing the family's relationship to that business. Mastering both determines whether families build lasting enterprises or become cautionary tales.

Sanctions are a common foreign policy tool, but succeed fully in less than 10% of cases. Examining the case of Myanmar after the 2021 coup, Thein, Grosman, Sosnovskikh, and Klarin show that multinational companies' exits are often driven by informal stakeholder pressures rather than legal mandates. While intended to uphold human rights, hasty exits can worsen humanitarian conditions and even strengthen regime-linked actors. To address this, the authors propose a “responsible exit” framework emphasizing due diligence, transparency, and worker protection. For policymakers, the study highlights the indirect and uneven impacts of sanctions, urging more coordinated design and clearer guidance to prevent harm to local populations.

Dau, Moore, Alfonzo Cordero, and Cervantes Zepeda explore how the balance between formal and informal institutions shapes entrepreneurial ecosystems in developing economies. Opening borders doesn't automatically transform entrepreneurship—trade liberalization can coexist with small scale and informal ventures when domestic policies misalign with local realities. Drawing on Ecuador as a case study, the analysis reveals how disconnects between national trade policy and local business support programs constrain entrepreneurial transformation. Sustainable, opportunity-driven entrepreneurship in emerging markets requires coordinated strategies that align trade exposure with targeted ecosystem strengthening, particularly in finance and capability building.