The majority of firms in most developing countries are informal. We conducted a field experiment in Sri Lanka which provided incentives for informal firms to formalize. Offering only information about the registration process and reimbursement for direct registration costs had no impact on...

Many governments have spent much of the past decade trying to extend a helping hand to informal businesses by making it easier and cheaper for them to formalize. Much less effort has been devoted to raising the costs of remaining informal, through increasing enforcement of existing regulations....

In the present paper an empirical analysis will point out that shadow economy tends to push up house prices, distorting real estate market. The sample covers EU, Japan and The United States. Data are taken from OECD and (Schneider et al., 2010); (Schneider, 2013). The elaboration of these panel...

It seems to be a trade-off between shadow economy restriction and macroeconomic repercussions. This view is expressed by (Era Dabla-Norris and Andrew Feltenstein, 2003) and is in agreement with the author of the present paper although approached in a different way. Author believes that present...

The instability and informality that characterize hybrid political orders and its effects on entrepreneurs remains largely unexplored in the scholarly literatures. In this paper we provide initial findings from the case of entrepreneurs' access to electricity in Lebanon. Using quantitative and...

In the present paper an empirical analysis will point out that as shadow economy declines then income distribution does not worsen. This paper supports the view of (Rosser et al., 2000; 2003). The sample covers most industrialized world. Data are taken from Eurostat and (Schneider et al., 2010);...

This paper compares the impact of institutions on individual decisions to become entrepreneurs in the form of new business start ups by males and females across 44 developed and developing economies between 1998 and 2004. We test four hypotheses; that women are less likely to undertake...

Limited access to finance is one of the major barriers for women entrepreneurs in Africa. This paper presents a model of start-ups in which firms' sales and profits depend on their productivity and access to credit. However, due to the lack of collateral assets such as land, female entrepreneurs...

This paper develops a model of costly firm creation in an economy with weak institutions, costly business environment as well as skill gaps where one of the equilibrium outcomes is a low-productivity trap. The paper tests the implications of the model using a cross-sectional dataset including...

This chapter offers a retrospective account of Baumol's contribution in light of its influence on economics and entrepreneurship studies. The first section describes the core arguments of his original paper. The second section discusses its impact on the entrepreneurship discipline. Following...