Informal Entrepreneurship in Developing Economies: The Impacts of Starting up Unregistered on firm Performance

By Colin Williams, A. Martinez-Perez, Abbi Kedir. 2017

238 citations recorded by the source corpus.

To advance understanding of the entrepreneurship process in developing economies, this article evaluates whether registered enterprises that initially avoid the cost of registration, and focus their resources on overcoming other liabilities of newness, lay a stronger foundation for subsequent growth. Analyzing World Bank Enterprise Survey data across 127 countries, and controlling for other firm performance determinants, registered enterprises that started up unregistered and spent longer operating unregistered are revealed to have significantly higher subsequent annual sales, employment, and productivity growth rates compared with those that registered from the outset. The theoretical and policy implications are then discussed.

Subfields: Business and International Management, Economics and Econometrics, Management of Technology and Innovation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b73ecc1e5ba8e44b033a4e67a439fe2db29d3c95

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Business and International Management

1. Vesna Mandakovic
2. Luciano Ciravegna
3. Colin Williams
4. José Ernesto Amorós
5. Pekka Stenholm

In Economics and Econometrics

1. A. Kayaoglu
2. Vesna Mandakovic
3. Luciano Ciravegna
4. Colin Williams
5. José Ernesto Amorós
6. Pekka Stenholm
7. M. Shahid

In Management of Technology and Innovation

1. José Ernesto Amorós
2. Luciano Ciravegna
3. Pekka Stenholm
4. Vesna Mandakovic
5. Colin Williams
6. M. Shahid

Citations in the corpus

• COVID-19 and undeclared work: impacts and policy responses in Europe (2020, background): “Williams and Schneider (2016) find that the equivalent of 15.8% of GDP is in the undeclared economy in the European Union (EU), whilst Williams et al. (2017a) estimate that 11.6% of total labour input in the private sector is undeclared in the EU.”
• Necessity or Opportunity? The Effects of State Fragility and Economic Development on Entrepreneurial Efforts (2019, background): “Research that highlights less-developed countries or regions will provide more insights into the complex relationships among economic development, formal (and informal institutions) and new business creations motivations (Acs et al., 2013; Bruton et al., 2008; Williams et al., 2016).”