A Tale of Two Species : Revisiting the Effect of Registration Reform on Informal Business Owners in Mexico

Some argue that informal business owners are viable entrepreneurs who do not register due to complex regulation. Others claim that they are making a living while searching for a job. This paper suggests that a mix of both views is correct. I separate informal business owners into those who have char...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Bruhn, Miriam
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	en_US
Published:	Elsevier 2013
Subjects:	Informal sector business registration reform entrepreneurship
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13802

id	okr-10986-13802
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-138022021-04-23T14:03:10Z A Tale of Two Species : Revisiting the Effect of Registration Reform on Informal Business Owners in Mexico Bruhn, Miriam Informal sector business registration reform entrepreneurship Some argue that informal business owners are viable entrepreneurs who do not register due to complex regulation. Others claim that they are making a living while searching for a job. This paper suggests that a mix of both views is correct. I separate informal business owners into those who have characteristics similar to wage workers and to formal business owners and study the impact of a business registration reform in Mexico on these two species. Informal business owners from the wage worker species are less likely to register due to the reform, but more likely to become wage workers since the reform created jobs. Informal business owners from the formal business owner species are more likely to register, but only in municipalities with high pre-reform constraints to formal entrepreneurship. These results explain why Bruhn, 2008 and Bruhn, 2011 finds no effect of the reform for all informal business owners taken together. 2013-06-05T20:31:55Z 2013-06-05T20:31:55Z 2013-03-13 Journal Article Journal of Development Economics 0304-3878 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13802 en_US Journal of Development Economics;103(July 2013) CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/ World Bank Elsevier Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	en_US
topic	Informal sector business registration reform entrepreneurship
spellingShingle	Informal sector business registration reform entrepreneurship Bruhn, Miriam A Tale of Two Species : Revisiting the Effect of Registration Reform on Informal Business Owners in Mexico
relation	Journal of Development Economics;103(July 2013)
description	Some argue that informal business owners are viable entrepreneurs who do not register due to complex regulation. Others claim that they are making a living while searching for a job. This paper suggests that a mix of both views is correct. I separate informal business owners into those who have characteristics similar to wage workers and to formal business owners and study the impact of a business registration reform in Mexico on these two species. Informal business owners from the wage worker species are less likely to register due to the reform, but more likely to become wage workers since the reform created jobs. Informal business owners from the formal business owner species are more likely to register, but only in municipalities with high pre-reform constraints to formal entrepreneurship. These results explain why Bruhn, 2008 and Bruhn, 2011 finds no effect of the reform for all informal business owners taken together.
format	Journal Article
author	Bruhn, Miriam
author_facet	Bruhn, Miriam
author_sort	Bruhn, Miriam
title	A Tale of Two Species : Revisiting the Effect of Registration Reform on Informal Business Owners in Mexico
title_short	A Tale of Two Species : Revisiting the Effect of Registration Reform on Informal Business Owners in Mexico
title_full	A Tale of Two Species : Revisiting the Effect of Registration Reform on Informal Business Owners in Mexico
title_fullStr	A Tale of Two Species : Revisiting the Effect of Registration Reform on Informal Business Owners in Mexico
title_full_unstemmed	A Tale of Two Species : Revisiting the Effect of Registration Reform on Informal Business Owners in Mexico
title_sort	tale of two species : revisiting the effect of registration reform on informal business owners in mexico
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2013
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13802
_version_	1764424612379099136

A Tale of Two Species : Revisiting the Effect of Registration Reform on Informal Business Owners in Mexico

Similar Items