of informal businesses. And sample designs are shaped by a narrow and in our view misleading definition of informality as … difference in productivity level between formal and informal firms in favour the former. We also show, however, that the … productivity gap is much smaller for large informal firms than for small informal firms, again suggesting that large informal firms …

This paper studies gross worker flows to explain the rising informality in Brazilian metropolitan labor markets from … and Maloney’s (2006) findings for Mexico that the patternsof worker transitions between formality and informality … correspond primarily to the job-to-job dynamics observed in the US and not to the traditional idea of informality constituting …

formal andinformal status. Thus we explore issues such as how informality may enable anentrepreneur to test the profitability …. Also,we show that financial constraints can interact with the option of informality to induceentry. …

negative association between productivity and informality, on the other. A subsidiary hypothesis is that social programs are …Social programs can reduce productivity and growth as they inadvertently generate perverse incentives for workers and … aggregate labor productivity. In turn, differences in the cost of labor produce differences in returns to capital across firms …

addition to "productivity", firms are also heterogeneous in their "caliber" — the ability to produce quality using fewer fixed … inputs. Compared to single-attribute models of firm heterogeneity emphasizing either productivity or the ability to produce …