Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Labor Productivity In The Informal Sector: Necessity Vs. Opportunity Firms, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Differences between opportunity and necessity firms within the informal sector have long been debated. This paper revisits this debate using a new dataset of informal firms in three African countries. Focusing on average productivity of labor, a measure of firm efficiency, we find that it is much higher for opportunity compared with necessity firms. However, this difference between necessity and opportunity firms holds only within the sample of manufacturing firms. For firms in the service sector, there is no such difference.

[Data and Stata do files included]

Obstacles To Registering: Necessity Vs. Opportunity Entrepreneurs, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Using a new dataset on informal or unregistered firms in three African countries, this paper identifies the type of firms or entrepreneurs that experience greater obstacles to registering. We find important differences between necessity and opportunity entrepreneurs. Averaged over six different obstacles, the severity of obstacles to registering is much higher for necessity compared with opportunity entrepreneurs. This finding appears to be driven by important obstacles including taxes that registered businesses have to pay, registration fees and information required to complete registration procedures. We argue that our results have important policy implications.

[Data and Stata do files included]

Necessity Vs. Opportunity Entrepreneurs In The Informal Sector (Short Note), Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Some informal businesses are started to take advantage of business opportunities (opportunity firms) while others are started because the owner cannot find a satisfactory job (necessity firms). Comparing opportunity vs. necessity informal firms, this note finds that opportunity firms are more efficient and larger. They are also more likely to use external finance, and suffer less from infrastructure bottlenecks such as power outages. The key point in all these differences is that they apply to the manufacturing sector alone. With the exception of having more educated managers and more businesses located outside than inside household premises, opportunity firms in the …