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on Informal and Underground Economics |
| By: | Bruhn, Miriam; McKenzie, David |
| Abstract: | The majority of microenterprises in most developing countries remain informal despite more than a decade of reforms aimed at making it easier and cheaper for them to formalize. This paper summarizes the evidence on the effects of entry reforms and related policy actions to promote firm formalization. Most of these policies result only in a modest increase in the number of formal firms, if at all. Less is known about the impact of other forms of business regulations on the performance of low-scale enterprises. Most informal firms appear not to benefit on net from formalizing, so ease of formalization alone will not lead to most of them formalizing. Increased enforcement of rules can increase formality. Although there is a fiscal benefit of doing this with larger informal firms, it is unclear whether there is a public rationale for trying to formalize subsistence enterprises. |
| Keywords: | Microfinance,Small Scale Enterprise,E-Business,Business in Development,Competitiveness and Competition Policy |
| Date: | 2013–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6507&r=iue |
| By: | Guglielmo Barone (Economic Research Department, Branch of Bologna, Bank of Italy, Italy; RCEA, Italy); Gaia Narciso (Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; CReAM, UK; IIIS, Ireland) |
| Abstract: | Organised crime is widely regarded as damaging to economic outcomes. This paper analyses the impact of organized crime on the allocation of public subsidies to businesses. We assemble an innovative data set on Italian mafia at municipality level and test whether mafia diverts public funding. We exploit exogenous variation at municipality level to instrument mafia activity and show that the presence of organized crime positively affects the probability of obtaining funding and the amount of public funds. Mafia is also found to lead to episodes of corruption in the public administration sector. A series of robustness checks confirms the above findings. |
| Keywords: | organized crime, public transfers, corruption |
| JEL: | H4 K4 O17 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:34_13&r=iue |
| By: | Antonio R. Andrés (Al Akhawayn University, School of Business Administration); Simplice A. Asongu (African Governance and Development Institute) |
| Abstract: | This paper employs a recent methodological innovation on intellectual property rights (IPRs) harmonization to project global timelines for common policies against business software piracy. The findings on 99 countries are premised on 15 fundamental characteristics of software piracy based on income-levels (high-income, lower-middle-income, upper-middle-income and low-income), legal-origins (English common-law, French civil-law, German civil-law and, Scandinavian civil-law) and, regional proximity (South Asia, Europe & Central Asia, East Asia & the Pacific, Middle East & North Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean and, Sub-Saharan Africa). The results broadly show that a feasible horizon for the harmonization of blanket policies ranges from 4 to 10 years. |
| Keywords: | Software piracy, Intellectual property rights, Panel data, Convergence |
| JEL: | F42 K42 O34 O38 O57 |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adv:wpaper:201301&r=iue |
| By: | Patrícia A. Morita Sakowski |
| Abstract: | Este documento apresenta os ajustes metodológicos introduzidos na segunda pesquisa de campo realizada pelo Ipea no âmbito do Sistema Integrado de Informações sobre o Mercado de Trabalho no Setor de Turismo (SIMT), a qual teve como objetivo atualizar os coeficientes de demanda turística utilizados para o cálculo das estimativas de ocupação no setor. O artigo também elucida alguns dos fatores que podem gerar divergências nas estatísticas sobre o mercado de trabalho na área, tais como o recorte de atividades consideradas como turismo, a restrição ou não da análise do emprego apenas àqueles relacionados ao consumo de turistas, a inclusão do mercado informal, entre outros. Apesar de a metodologia ainda se deparar com alguns desafios, as estimativas obtidas são consistentes com as percepções de especialistas internacionais em estatísticas do turismo e com dados análogos de países com sistemas de estatísticas avançados. This paper presents the methodological adjustments introduced in the second field research conducted by Ipea under the Integrated Information System on the Labor Market in the Tourism Sector with the aim of upgrading the tourist demand coefficients used in the estimation of tourism employment. The paper also elucidates some of the factors that can explain the existence of different statistics for the tourism labor market, such as the scope of activities considered as tourism, the restriction of the analysis to employment related to the consumption of tourists or not, and the inclusion of the informal market. Although the methodology still faces some challenging issues, the estimates obtained are consistent with the perceptions of experts in international tourism statistics and with similar data from countries with advanced statistical systems. |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipe:ipetds:1842&r=iue |