Using unbalanced panel data from the small and medium enterprise surveys in Viet Nam in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015, this paper investigates factors associated with informality in Viet Nam. We assume that household businesses, especially the top tier firms, become formal either...

Using unbalanced panel data from the small and medium enterprise surveys in Viet Nam in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015, this paper investigates factors associated with informality in Viet Nam. We assume that household businesses, especially the top tier firms, become formal either...

This paper investigates how enforcement of labor regulation affects the firm's use of informal employment and its impact on firm performance. Using firm level data on informal employment and firm performance, and administrative data on enforcement of regulation at the city level, we show that in...

This paper investigates how enforcement of labor regulation affects the firm’s use of informal employment and its impact on firm performance. Using firm level data on informal employment and firm performance, and administrative data on enforcement of regulation at the city level, we show that...

Abstract Social reproduction is the highest for self-employed as shown by an extensive literature from developed and developing countries. Very few studies however document the reason for this high intergenerational correlation of the self-employed status. The rare studies that have been done...

Using first-hand data from the 2009 Employment and Informal Sector Survey (EESIC) in the two largest cities of the Republic of Congo, Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire, we analyse the impact of education on labour market outcomes, and identify the segments where education pays off the most....

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...

There is growing evidence that noncognitive skills affect economic, behavioral, and demographic outcomes in the developed world. However, little such evidence exists from developing countries. This paper estimates the joint effect of five specific personality traits and cognition on a sequence...

Women represent the majority of informal sector workers in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa where adolescent pregnancy rates are high. Little empirical evidence exists concerning the relationship between teen fertility and the likelihood that a woman will be employed in the...

With the use of comparable data from seven West African capitals, we attempt to assess the rationale behind development policies targeting high rates of school enrolment through the prism of allocation of labour and returns to skills across the formal and informal sectors. We find that people...