IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/deveco/v134y2018icp28-49.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do lower taxes reduce informality? Evidence from Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Rocha, Rudi
  • Ulyssea, Gabriel
  • Rachter, Laísa

Abstract

We exploit a unique, large-scale formalization program in Brazil to estimate the effects of reducing the costs of formality on firm formalization. We rely on both firm-level administrative data and individual panel data to show that reducing taxes once registration costs have already been eliminated reduces firm informality. This effect comes from the formalization of existing informal firms, and not from the creation of new formal businesses nor greater formal firm survival. The implied formalization elasticity is otherwise low, and our cost-benefit analysis indicates that the program led to net losses in tax revenues.

Suggested Citation

  • Rocha, Rudi & Ulyssea, Gabriel & Rachter, Laísa, 2018. "Do lower taxes reduce informality? Evidence from Brazil," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 28-49.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:134:y:2018:i:c:p:28-49
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.04.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387818303560
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.04.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "The Regulation of Entry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 1-37.
    2. Fajnzylber, Pablo & Maloney, William F. & Montes-Rojas, Gabriel V., 2011. "Does formality improve micro-firm performance? Evidence from the Brazilian SIMPLES program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 262-276, March.
    3. Rafael La Porta & Andrei Shleifer, 2014. "Informality and Development," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 109-126, Summer.
    4. Miriam Bruhn, 2011. "License to Sell: The Effect of Business Registration Reform on Entrepreneurial Activity in Mexico," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 382-386, February.
    5. Kaplan, David S. & Piedra, Eduardo & Seira, Enrique, 2011. "Entry regulation and business start-ups: Evidence from Mexico," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1501-1515.
    6. Áureo de Paula & Jose A. Scheinkman, 2010. "Value-Added Taxes, Chain Effects, and Informality," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 195-221, October.
    7. Suresh de Mel & David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2013. "The Demand for, and Consequences of, Formalization among Informal Firms in Sri Lanka," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 122-150, April.
    8. Miriam Bruhn & David McKenzie, 2014. "Entry Regulation and the Formalization of Microenterprises in Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 29(2), pages 186-201.
    9. Marianne Bertrand & Francis Kramarz, 2002. "Does Entry Regulation Hinder Job Creation? Evidence from the French Retail Industry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1369-1413.
    10. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2013. "Taxation and Development," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 041, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    11. De Giorgi, Giacomo & Rahman, Aminur, 2013. "SME’s registration: Evidence from an RCT in Bangladesh," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(3), pages 573-578.
    12. Gustavo Henrique de Andrade & Miriam Bruhn & David McKenzie, 2016. "A Helping Hand or the Long Arm of the Law? Experimental Evidence on What Governments Can Do to Formalize Firms," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 30(1), pages 24-54.
    13. Gustavo Henrique de Andrade & Miriam Bruhn & David McKenzie, 2013. "A Helping Hand or the Long Arm of the Law?," World Bank Publications - Reports 22623, The World Bank Group.
    14. repec:cep:stieop:41 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Monteiro, Joana C.M. & Assunção, Juliano J., 2012. "Coming out of the shadows? Estimating the impact of bureaucracy simplification and tax cut on formality in Brazilian microenterprises," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 105-115.
    16. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "The Missing "Missing Middle"," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 89-108, Summer.
    17. Villa, Juan Miguel & Fernandes, Danilo & Bosch, Mariano, 2015. "Nudging the Self-employed into Contributing to Social Security: Evidence from a Nationwide Quasi Experiment in Brazil," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 7313, Inter-American Development Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jessen, Jonas & Kluve, Jochen, 2021. "The effectiveness of interventions to reduce informality in low- and middle-income countries," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 138.
    2. Gabriel Ulyssea, 2018. "Firms, Informality, and Development: Theory and Evidence from Brazil," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(8), pages 2015-2047, August.
    3. Acosta, Matias, 2021. "¿Cómo afecta la formalización del trabajo informal independiente de barrios populares a la pobreza multidimensional urbana?," SocArXiv hfmnb, Center for Open Science.
    4. Rahman, Aminur, 2014. "Investment climate reforms and job creation in developing countries : what do we know and what should we do ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7025, The World Bank.
    5. Todd Kumler & Eric Verhoogen & Judith Frías, 2020. "Enlisting Employees in Improving Payroll Tax Compliance: Evidence from Mexico," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(5), pages 881-896, December.
    6. Caio Piza & Tulio Antonio Cravo & Linnet Taylor & Lauro Gonzalez & Isabel Musse & Isabela Furtado & Ana C. Sierra & Samer Abdelnour, 2016. "The Impact of Business Support Services for Small and Medium Enterprises on Firm Performance in Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries: A Systematic Review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(1), pages 1-167.
    7. Galiani, Sebastian & Meléndez, Marcela & Ahumada, Camila Navajas, 2017. "On the effect of the costs of operating formally: New experimental evidence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 143-157.
    8. Gustavo Henrique de Andrade & Miriam Bruhn & David McKenzie, 2016. "A Helping Hand or the Long Arm of the Law? Experimental Evidence on What Governments Can Do to Formalize Firms," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 30(1), pages 24-54.
    9. Cabrera, José María & Cid, Alejandro & Bernatzky, Marianne Bernatzky, 2016. "The effect of one-on-one assistance on the compliance with labor regulation. A field experiment in extremely vulnerable settings," MPRA Paper 84639, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Grimm, Michael & Paffhausen, Anna Luisa, 2015. "Do interventions targeted at micro-entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized firms create jobs? A systematic review of the evidence for low and middle income countries," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 67-85.
    11. Melanie Khamis, 2014. "Formalization of jobs and firms in emerging market economies through registration reform," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-67, May.
    12. Amadou Boly, 2015. "On the Benefits of Formalization: Panel Evidence from Vietnam," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-038, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Benhassine, Najy & McKenzie, David & Pouliquen, Victor & Santini, Massimiliano, 2018. "Does inducing informal firms to formalize make sense? Experimental evidence from Benin," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 1-14.
    14. Amadou Boly, 2015. "On the benefits of formalization: Panel evidence from Vietnam," WIDER Working Paper Series 038, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Cheng, Hua & Ding, Siying & Liu, Yongzheng, 2024. "The effectiveness of entry deregulation: Novel evidence from removing minimum capital requirements," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    16. Colin C. Williams, 2023. "A Modern Guide to the Informal Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 18668.
    17. Tulio Cravo & Caio Piza, 2016. "The Impact of Business Support Services for Small and Medium Enterprises on Firm Performance in Low -and Middle- Income Countries: A Meta-Analysis," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 94938, Inter-American Development Bank.
    18. Suresh de Mel & David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2013. "The Demand for, and Consequences of, Formalization among Informal Firms in Sri Lanka," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 122-150, April.
    19. Miriam Bruhn & David McKenzie, 2014. "Entry Regulation and the Formalization of Microenterprises in Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 29(2), pages 186-201.
    20. Floridi, A. & Demena, B.A. & Wagner, N., 2019. "Shedding light on the shadows of informality," ISS Working Papers - General Series 642, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Taxes; Informality; Firm creation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:134:y:2018:i:c:p:28-49. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/devec .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.