Using Administrative Data to Evaluate Municipal Reforms : An Evaluation of the Impact of Minas Facil Expresso
Efforts to make it easier for firms to register formally are the most common form of business regulatory reform over the past decade. While there is evidence that large reforms have resulted in some increases in registration rates, recent experimen...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Publications & Research |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/02/17369910/using-administrative-data-evaluate-municipal-reforms-evaluation-impact-minas-facil-expresso http://hdl.handle.net/10986/21477 |
| Summary: | Efforts to make it easier for firms to
register formally are the most common form of business
regulatory reform over the past decade. While there is
evidence that large reforms have resulted in some increases
in registration rates, recent experimental evidence suggests
very few informal firms choose to register when given
information about how to do so. This raises the question of
whether it is productive for governments to continue to
extend simplification efforts to all firms, especially those
in more remote areas where many of the benefits of
registering may be reduced. This study uses administrative
data to evaluate the impact of Minas Facil Expresso, a
program in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, which
attempted to expand a business start-up simplification
program to more remote municipalities. Using
difference-in-differences with 56 months of registration
data for 822 municipalities, the analysis finds introducing
these units actually led to a reduction in registration
rates, and no change in tax revenues. The paper uses this
evaluation to illustrate the design choices and issues
involved in using administrative data to evaluate reforms,
with the goal of also providing a template that can be used
for evaluating similar reforms elsewhere. |
|---|