 Formal Registration and Informal Firms in CambodiaAsian Development Review (ADR), 2023, vol. 40, issue 01, 151-176 Abstract: Encouraging informal firms to register with the government is a key policy issue for developing economies. However, the impact of formal registration on firm performance remains inconclusive. This paper constructs a nationally representative panel data set on registered and unregistered establishments in Cambodia by using the Economic Census in 2011 and the Inter-censal Economic Survey in 2014; the Economic Census surveyed all nonfarm establishments and enterprises without any establishment-size threshold, which served as a credible sample frame for the Inter-censal Economic Survey. To mitigate selection bias, I employ a difference-in-differences method combined with propensity-score matching and a propensity-score-weighted regression method. My results show that formalization has a significantly positive impact on sales, value added, and regularly employed workers, but yields little effect on labor productivity. While formal registration alone may not boost productivity, it can encourage the business growth of formalized firms by hiring more formal workers. Keywords: Cambodia; formalization; informal sector; registration (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:adrxxx:v:40:y:2023:i:01:n:s0116110523500038 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1142/S0116110523500038 Access Statistics for this article Asian Development Review (ADR) is currently edited by Tetsushi Sonobe More articles in Asian Development Review (ADR) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. |
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