Small Business Productivity Issues Differ From Country to Country

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The McKinsey Global Institute aggregated a richly granular data set of micro-, small-, and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs) and large companies across 12 broad sectors, 68 level-two sub-sectors, and more than 200 level-three sub-sectors for 16 countries that account for more than half of global GDP.

In these countries, MSMEs on average have only half the productivity of large companies, and less than that in emerging economies. Raising MSMEs to top-quartile levels relative to large companies represents value equivalent to 5 percent of GDP in advanced economies and 10 percent in emerging economies.

The visual presentations here summarize the findings for the 16 countries in McKinsey's research representing different income levels.