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From the Editor's Desk (June-July 2012)Tony Addison I started writing this ‘From the Editor’s Desk’ in Accra, to the sound of an African drum band, preparing for a ceremony to mark the...
Tony Addison I started writing this ‘From the Editor’s Desk’ in Accra, to the sound of an African drum band, preparing for a ceremony to mark the...
24 September 2013 Roger Williamson Another big weekend for UNU-WIDER. The stage was well set on Thursday 19 September for a consideration of...
Based on a unique panel dataset consisting of both formal and informal firms surveyed every other year from 2005 to 2013, this paper explores the benefits of formalization to the government and firm employees in Vietnam. We find that formalization...
What types of businesses benefit or suffer due to geographic clustering? Data available from Cambodia on competition and spillovers—at both village- and commune-level—is useful to answer a number of questions about the effects of clustering and the...
Entrepreneurs are often adversely affected by violent conflict such as civil war. At the same time though entrepreneurs may contribute to or even benefit from violent conflict and other ‘destructive’ and ‘unproductive’ activities that limit economic...
Based on unique panel data consisting of both formal and informal firms, this paper uses a matched double difference approach to examine the relationship between legal status and firm level outcomes in micro, small and medium manufacturing...
The informal sector makes up an overwhelming share of both gross domestic product and total employment in Africa. In this paper, we lay out some of the basic characteristics of the informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa, relevant institutions, and...
This article uses panel data from a survey of small- and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam to uncover which firms pay bribes and which do not. We also study how bribe paying evolved between 2005 and 2007 and test how the determinants of bribes...
This paper is the first to address the challenges of measuring the labour income share of developing countries. The poor availability and reliability of national accounts data, and the fact that self-employed people, whose labour income is hard to...
Tommaso Ciarli, Saeed Parto and Maria Savona Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world with an estimated per capita income of 300...
This paper investigates if changes in the minimum wage have influenced changes on the formality and informality rates, and the level of wages in Ecuador. A 12-year panel was built. It allows to overcome the short time span of household data and so to...
This paper analyses the consequences of formalisation on the performance of informal firms, using a panel dataset from Vietnam. We find that switching firms (before switching) have higher profit and value added compared to non-switching firms...
Myanmar’s transition to a market-based economy is accompanied by rapid development of the private manufacturing sector, which has large potential for improving economic growth. The overall success of the sector, however, should not be taken for...
Using unbalanced panel data from the small and medium enterprise surveys in Vietnam in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015, this paper investigates factors associated with informality in Vietnam. We assume that household businesses, especially the...
Is the lack of ‘managerial capital’, alongside human and financial capital, a constraint on the growth of firms in developing countries? The evidence on this is still mixed, especially among small and medium enterprises. This paper uses a panel of...
Public policy aimed at building capacity among the extremely poor (support for food and nutrition; health; education and, more recently, financial services), combined with a stable macroeconomic environment, has proved to be successful for poverty...
Almost twenty years have passed since researchers from the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Peru showed how ‘bad laws’ impose disproportionate costs on those who choose formality. Although a multitude of conflicting regulations still precludes...
Given the current focus of international development policy on pro-poor growth and poverty reduction, the role of the informal sector in the process of economic development is again at the top of the research and policy agenda. A key question is if...
This paper addresses informal cross-border trade in the Horn of Africa, with an emphasis on the Somalia borderlands. It will be shown that despite the collapse of a government in 1991, Somalia’s unofficial exports of cattle to Kenya have grown...
The objective of the paper is to understand the transforming relationship between the formal and informal sector in a liberalizing open developing economy. There are various facets in this relationship, and we focus on three essential aspects. First...
The following essay has three parts. The first is a story about fluctuations in the balance of the relationship between impersonal and personal principles of social organization. This draws heavily on Max Weber’s interpretation of western history...
This paper explores the relationship of the informal economy to the formal economy and to the formal regulatory environment. It begins with a comparison of the earlier concept of the ‘informal sector’ with the new expanded concept of the ‘informal...
Findings of cross-cultural psychology suggest that different approaches to rule enforcement have cultural roots. Individualist societies have established a rule of law, in which rules prevail; collectivist societies have a rule of man, which allows...
This study attempts to determine the extent to which human potential may be unlocked by government or other formal sector actions that induce voluntary contributions by individuals to the activities of Indonesia’s posyandus or village health posts...
One of the most notable phenomena during economic transition is the shrinkage of the public sector and expansion of the not working population, simultaneously with the expansion of both the formal and informal private sectors. We address the related...
Studies of land property rights usually focus on tenure security and transfer rights. Rights to determine how to use the land are regularly ignored. However, user rights are often limited. Relying on a unique Vietnamese panel data set at both...