Sharing is a norm in many societies. We present a theoretical model on the trade-off between sharing and investment which we test on data from tailors in Burkina Faso. The empirical results support the idea that there are two behavioural patterns: entrepreneurs following an 'insurance regime'...

Kleinunternehmerische Aktivitäten im informellen Sektor leisten üblicherweise einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Produktion in Entwicklungsländern. Klassische Theorien des strukturellen Wandels und ökonomischen Wachstums nehmen an, dass der moderne Sektor diejenigen, die im informellen Sektor...

Most support programs targeted at small firms in low- and middle-income countries fail to generate transformative effects at a large scale due to bad targeting, too little flexibility, and the limited size of the support, among others. This paper assesses the short-term effects of a randomized...

An often-heard argument is that South Africa's very high crime rate is the main reason for the country's small share of business ownership. Combining a fixed-effects model with an instrumental variable approach, we estimate the effect of crime on self-employment and business performance using a...

Small-scale economic activities in the informal sector usually account for an important share of production in developing countries. Classical theories of structural change and economic growth assume that the modern sector would sooner or later absorb the workers employed in the informal sector....

This article examines the dynamics of the informal sector in Madagascar during the 1995-2004 period, which was characterized by sustained growth that ended due to a major political crisis. As conventionally assumed by simple dualistic models, the informal sector indeed fulfils a labor-absorbing...

(english) This paper investigates the dynamics of the informal sector in Madagascar during a period of fragile growth. Overall, the behavior of informal firms in terms of earnings, employment and capital accumulation points to a degree of heterogeneity which goes beyond a simple dualistic model...

Sharing is a norm in many societies. We present a theoretical model on the trade-off between sharing and investment which we test on data from tailors in Burkina Faso. The empirical results support the idea that there are two behavioural patterns: entrepreneurs following an 'insurance regime'...

Sharing is a norm in many societies. We present a theoretical model on the trade-off between sharing and investment which we test on data from tailors in Burkina Faso. The empirical results support the idea that there are two behavioural patterns: entrepreneurs following an 'insurance regime'...

Sharing is a norm in many societies. We present a theoretical model on the trade-off between sharing and investment which we test on data from tailors in Burkina Faso. The empirical results support the idea that there are two behavioural patterns: entrepreneurs following an 'insurance regime'...