IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/erg/wpaper/916.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

MSEs Informality and Productivity: Evidence from Egypt

Author

Listed:
  • Hala Abou-Ali
  • Reham Rizk

    (British University)

Abstract

This paper assesses the impact of informality on household enterprise performance in terms of productivity and size of output. Furthermore, it pinpoints informality determinants with respect to different types of obstacles that impede their growth. The analysis uses the ELMPS 2012 data and finds that a firm’s age and an entrepreneur’s education level have a significant impact on the likelihood of belonging to the informal sector. Moreover, mobile enterprises, agricultural sector and household savings increase the probability of belonging to the informal sector. In sum, the results support the argument that informality has a deterrent impact on the level of productivity and the value of output of household enterprise in Egypt.

Suggested Citation

  • Hala Abou-Ali & Reham Rizk, 2015. "MSEs Informality and Productivity: Evidence from Egypt," Working Papers 916, Economic Research Forum, revised May 2015.
    • Handle: RePEc:erg:wpaper:916
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://erf.org.eg/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/916.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://bit.ly/2m6wXvv
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mead, Donald C., 1994. "The contribution of small enterprises to employment growth in southern and eastern Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(12), pages 1881-1894, December.
    2. Fatma El-Hamidi, 2011. "How Do Women Entrepreneurs Perform? Empirical Evidence from Egypt," Working Papers 621, Economic Research Forum, revised 09 Jan 2011.
    3. Thi Quynh Trang Do, 2009. "How firm characteristics affect the level of constrain to growth: An empirical analysis of micro and small firms in Vietnam," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 09069, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    4. Thi Quynh Trang Do, 2009. "How firm characteristics affect the level of constrain to growth : An empirical analysis of micro and small firms in Vietnam," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00429732, HAL.
    5. Friedrich Schneider & Dominik Enste, 1999. "Shadow Economies Around the World - Size, Causes, and Consequences," CESifo Working Paper Series 196, CESifo.
    6. Swaminathan, M., 1991. "Understanding the "Informal Sector": A Survey," Research Paper 95, World Institute for Development Economics Research.
    7. Martha Alter Chen, 2007. "Rethinking the Informal Economy: Linkages with the Formal Economy and the Formal Regulatory Environment," Working Papers 46, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
    8. repec:ilo:ilowps:357068 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Thi Quynh Trang Do, 2009. "How firm characteristics affect the level of constrain to growth : An empirical analysis of micro and small firms in Vietnam," Post-Print halshs-00429732, HAL.
    10. Mead, Donald C. & Liedholm, Carl, 1998. "The dynamics of micro and small enterprises in developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 61-74, January.
    11. Mahdī, ʻĀliyah., 2002. "Towards decent work in the informal sector the case of Egypt," ILO Working Papers 993661433402676, International Labour Organization.
    12. Angel-Urdinola, Diego F. & Tanabe, Kimie, 2012. "Micro-determinants of informal employment in the Middle East and North Africa region," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 66594, The World Bank.
    13. Schneider, Friedrich, 2002. "The Size and Development of the Shadow Economies of 22 Transition and 21 OECD Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 514, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Dominik H. Enste & Friedrich Schneider, 2000. "Shadow Economies: Size, Causes, and Consequences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 77-114, March.
    15. Goedhuys, Micheline., 2002. "Employment creation and employment quality in African manufacturing firms," ILO Working Papers 993570683402676, International Labour Organization.
    16. Fatma El-Hamidi, 2011. "How Do Women Entrepreneurs Perform? Empirical Evidence from Egypt," Working Papers 23, AlmaLaurea Inter-University Consortium.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Caroline Krafft, 2016. "Understanding the Dynamics of Household Enterprises in Egypt: Birth, Death, Growth and Transformation," Working Papers 983, Economic Research Forum, revised Mar 2016.
    2. Caroline Krafft & Ragui Assaad, 2018. "Do More Productive Firms Pay Workers More? Evidence from Egypt," Working Papers 1222, Economic Research Forum, revised 18 Sep 2018.

    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. Mai Hassan & Friedrich Schneider, 2016. "Modelling the Egyptian Shadow Economy: A Currency Demand and A MIMIC Model Approach," CESifo Working Paper Series 5727, CESifo.
    2. Nesma Ali & Boris Najman, 2016. "Informal Competition, Firms Productivity and Policy Reforms in Egypt," Working Papers 1025, Economic Research Forum, revised Jul 2016.
    3. Colin C. Williams, 2023. "A Modern Guide to the Informal Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 18668.
    4. Nguyen, Thi Minh Hieu & Nguyen, Thi Huong Giang & Vu, Thi Minh Ngoc & Nguyen, Viet Duc, 2013. "Whether or not the informal economy as an engine for poverty alleviation in Vietnam," MPRA Paper 48378, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. James Alm & Abel Embaye, 2013. "Using Dynamic Panel Methods to Estimate Shadow Economies Around the World, 1984-2006," Working Papers 1303, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    6. Vial, Virginie & Hanoteau, Julien, 2015. "Returns to Micro-Entrepreneurship in an Emerging Economy: A Quantile Study of Entrepreneurial Indonesian Households’ Welfare," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 142-157.
    7. Roberto Dell'Anno & Offiong Helen Solomon, 2008. "Shadow economy and unemployment rate in USA: is there a structural relationship? An empirical analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(19), pages 2537-2555.
    8. Floridi, A. & Wagner, N. & Cameron, J., 2016. "A study of Egyptian and Palestine trans-formal firms – A neglected category operating in the borderland between formality and informality," ISS Working Papers - General Series 619, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    9. Mohamed Amara, 2016. "The linkages between formal and informal employment growth in Tunisia: a spatial simultaneous equations approach," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 56(1), pages 203-227, January.
    10. Zoë Kuehn, 2014. "Tax Rates, Governance, And The Informal Economy In High-Income Countries," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 405-430, January.
    11. Klarita Gërxhani, 2004. "The Informal Sector in Developed and Less Developed Countries: A Literature Survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 120(3_4), pages 267-300, September.
    12. González-Fernández, Marcos & González-Velasco, Carmen, 2015. "Analysis of the shadow economy in the Spanish regions," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1049-1064.
    13. Klapper, Leora & Richmond, Christine, 2011. "Patterns of business creation, survival and growth: Evidence from Africa," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(S1), pages 32-44.
    14. Elgin, Ceyhun & Uras, Burak R., 2013. "Public debt, sovereign default risk and shadow economy," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 628-640.
    15. Vargas, Jose P Mauricio, 2012. "To be or not to be informal?: A Structural Simulation," MPRA Paper 41290, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Dasgupta, Nandini & Lloyd-Jones, Tony, 2018. "Heterogeneity and vulnerability in the urban informal economy: Reworking the problem in the current context. The case of uganda," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 10, pages 64-72.
    17. Elgin, Ceyhun & Uras, Burak R., 2013. "Public debt, sovereign default risk and shadow economy," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 628-640.
    18. Miroslava Kostova Karaboytcheva & Carolina Silva Cassorla, 2015. "The shadow economy: a relevant factor for investment decisions in selected European Union countries," Financial Theory and Practice, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 39(3), pages 305-323.
    19. Andreas Buehn & Alexander Karmann, 2011. "The Shadow Economy and Do-it-Yourself Activities: What Do We Know?," Chapters, in: Friedrich Schneider (ed.), Handbook on the Shadow Economy, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. James Alm & Jeremy Clark & Kara Leibel, 2016. "Enforcement, Socioeconomic Diversity, and Tax Filing Compliance in the United States," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(3), pages 725-747, January.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:erg:wpaper:916. 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: Sherine Ghoneim (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erfaceg.html .

    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.