Informal Survey 2009

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Reference ID

MDG_2009_InS_v01_M_WB

DOI

https://doi.org/10.48529/vjw0-wn55

Producer(s)

World Bank

Collection(s)

Enterprise Surveys

Metadata

DDI/XML JSON

Created on

Mar 24, 2011

Last modified

Sep 26, 2013

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24234

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Questionnaires

Informal Questionnaire

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Download	https://microdata.worldbank.org//catalog/204/download/17019

Reports

Formal and Informal Microenterprises

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Author(s)	Jessica Leino
Description	This note uses unique data from enterprise surveys in three African countries to examine the characteristics of informal and formal microenterprises. Entrepreneurs in the informal sector have different motivations for starting a business from their formal sector counterparts, with about twice as many informal entrepreneurs citing lack of alternative employment opportunities as their main motivation. Female entrepreneurs are more likely to operate in the informal sector, with 38 percent of informal businesses and only a quarter of formal businesses owned by women. Differences in entrepreneur characteristics translate into differences in business practices, with informal firms less than half as likely to have paid employees and nearly half as likely to have bank accounts.
Download	http://www.enterprisesurveys.org/~/media/FPDKM/EnterpriseSurveys/Documents/Enterprise%20Notes/Informality-5.pdf

Obstacles to Registering: Necessity vs. Opportunity Entrepreneurs

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Author(s)	Mohammad Amin, Enterprise Analysis Unit - World Bank Group
Date	2009-12-01
Description	Using a new dataset on informal or unregistered firms in Ivory Coast, Madagascar and Mauritius, 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.
Download	http://enterprisesurveys.org/~/media/FPDKM/EnterpriseSurveys/Documents/Research%20Papers/Obstacles-to-Registering-Firms.pdf

Labor Productivity in the Informal Sector: Necessity vs. Opportunity Firms

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Author(s)	Mohammad Amin, Enterprise Analysis Unit - World Bank Group
Date	2009-12-01
Description	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.
Download	http://enterprisesurveys.org/~/media/FPDKM/EnterpriseSurveys/Documents/Research%20Papers/Labor-Productivity-in-the-Informal-Sector.pdf

Necessity vs. Opportunity Entrepreneurs in the Informal Sector

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Author(s)	Mohammad Amin, Enterprise Analysis Unit - World Bank Group
Description	Some informal or unregistered businesses are established to take advantage of business opportunities (opportunity firms) while others are established because the owner cannot find a satisfactory job (necessity firms). Comparing opportunity vs. necessity informal firms in Africa, 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. However, all these differences 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 service sector are not too different from the necessity firms in the same sector. In short, the motivation behind starting a business influences the performance of informal manufacturing firms but has little effect on the performance of informal service firms.
Download	http://enterprisesurveys.org/~/media/FPDKM/EnterpriseSurveys/Documents/Enterprise%20Notes/Informality-17.pdf

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