studies by Beck et al. (2003a and 2003b), which illustrate the use in combination of expert surveys and firm-level surveys.

From 2002, an expanded version of the WBES known as the Productivity and Investment Climate Survey (PICS) has been running and plans to cover 20 surveys per annum with results reported so far from 49 countries (see list in Table 2)<sup>22</sup> . The sample size per country has been increased to several hundred business establishments, and (for most countries) the focus has narrowed to manufacturing. The core questionnaire is rather longer now (82 questions, many subdivided), reflecting a broadening of the areas of interest, which now include innovation, labor relations and productivity as well as the areas covered in the WBES. In addition, national questionnaires may explore additional areas of specific national interest.

The finance questions of PICS now cover seven areas in more detail: sources of financing divided (miraculously) into sources for working capital and for new fixed investment;<sup>23</sup> existence and utilization of a line of credit; collateral, interest and duration of most recent loan; currency denomination of total borrowing; speed and cost of payments system; audited accounts; whether land owned or leased.

The PICS were drawn on extensively for the WDR 2005 recently published, but no comprehensive detailed write-up of the cross-country results has yet been released.

# **4 Provider surveys and administrative records**

Information can be obtained from financial services providers and their regulators regarding both the scale of operations and the degree to which their services reach household and business customers, and on the operations and management etc. of the provider itself, both of which aspects have been identified above as relevant to the questions at issue.

# _Information published by providers_

Although much regulatory information is routinely obtained from banks and other financial service providers for regulatory purposes and also, for many banks, published for the benefit of shareholders or the general public, relatively little of this has a bearing on the small customers of interest here. For most banks the aggregate value of deposits, or loans of such customers is very small as a fraction of the banks’ total business, and information about numbers of accountholders is not always retained or known. Some relevant information should be easily available from providers but is not commonly published even though not very market sensitive. This would include such information as number and location of branches and ATMs, number of accounts, size distribution of accounts, both deposit and lending and pricing of services.

> 22 This count includes the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Surveys (BEEPS) for Easter Europe and Central Asia which retain the smaller sample size, wider sectoral coverage and more limited questionnaire more characteristic of the earlier wave.

> 23 It mystifies this author as to how the firm is expected to make this distinction given the fungibility of money, not only between working capital and fixed investment, but as between existing real capital and new investment.

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