On informality and productivity of micro and small enterprises: evidence from MENA countries

Rana Hendy and Chahir Zaki

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2013, vol. 19, issue 4, 438-470

Abstract: The objective of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to examine the impact of informality on productivity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in order to identify existing barriers to formality. Second, it pinpoints factors that boost productivity of micro and small enterprises (MSEs). Using firm-level micro data from the Egyptian and Turkish MSEs surveys, we first find that firm's age, entrepreneur's gender, age and education have a significant impact on the probability of belonging to the informal sector. In addition, we find a negative effect of informality on productivity in both Egypt and Turkey. While this result is sensitive to the estimation method for the Egyptian case, it remains robust for the Turkish one. Consequently, there is a clear and significant productivity differential between formal and informal firms in Turkey, but not in Egypt.

Keywords: micro and small enterprises; MSEs; micro enterprises; productivity; informal entrepreneurship; Middle East; Egypt; Turkey; MENA region; small firms; gender; age; education levels. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=55486 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijesbu:v:19:y:2013:i:4:p:438-470

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().