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The informal economy makes an important contribution to economic activity but knowledge about the country-level conditions that influence an informal firm's willingness to formalise is limited. This article integrates insights from institutional theory and the imprinting hypothesis to explain how factor markets and institutional quality affect the likelihood that informal firms formalise over time, as well as how these effects are contingent on economic conditions at the founding stage. Using data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys comprising of 8005 observations from 2477 firms in 73 countries, the results suggest that better factor markets and institutional quality increase the likelihood of formalisation and these relationships are strengthened by favourable economic conditions at the founding stage. The low correlation between factor markets and institutional quality supports the importance of separating these dimensions, while the moderating effect of economic conditions at the founding stage supports the importance of imprinting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: The search for new resources is costly and difficult within the resource‐based view. Because search is costly, a common prescription is for firms to focus on their endowments—the resources they already possess. However, is there a way for firms to somehow find value amongst the "vast reservoirs" of external resources? We review existing forms of resource search and then suggest an alternative. Extending arguments from biology, we develop the idea of a firm‐specific search image and highlight how search images can reveal resources not obvious to others. The search image notion speaks to how firms might uniquely identify dormant resources, even in seemingly efficient factor markets. We conclude with a discussion of how our arguments pertain to the resource‐based view and the origins of resources. Managerial Summary: How do managers and entrepreneurs search, identify, and find assets and resources in relentlessly competitive markets? Existing arguments largely suggest that firms should not engage in costly and competitive "external" search—instead they should focus "inside," leveraging the endowments and resources they already possess. We argue that vast reservoirs of dormant resources are available, and that a particular form of external resource search offers a powerful alternative to the prescription to "look inside." Specifically, we highlight how a "search image" can enable entrepreneurs and managers to search and see resources and value that is not obvious to others. In particular, the search for a functional need—and solution to a formulated problem—can help firms recognize and find dormant resources and create value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Management & Organization Review is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Motivation: The extent to which African farming systems are undergoing transformation continues to be strongly debated. Purpose: With a focus on Tanzania, this study assesses whether recent trends in farm behaviour, the structure of farming, and agricultural commercialization and productivity conform to stylized facts about agricultural transformation. In the process, we propose an updated typology of farms that reflects recent changes in the relative importance of different farm categories and sheds light on the heterogeneity found even among smallholder farms. Approach and methods: To this end, we refer to farm‐household survey data over the period 2008–2014. Findings: We find that medium‐scale farms and small, farm‐focused, commercialized farms are claiming an increasingly prominent role in Tanzanian agriculture. Farmers are more likely to participate in markets for land and labour, to engage in some forms of agricultural intensification and to exhibit a commercial orientation. Over the study period, the real value of agricultural output grew substantially, mostly reflecting a remarkable expansion of cropland rather than increased land productivity. Labour productivity also grew, driven by a reduction in labour intensity. At the same time, Tanzania is experiencing a dramatic movement of labour out of agriculture. Policy implications: Together, the evidence suggests that Tanzania is on the cusp of larger transformational processes in the decades to come. With this knowledge, policies can be thoughtfully shaped to support agricultural growth (particularly in land productivity) and meet farmers' diverse needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate whether social structure helps or hinders factor allocation using unusually rich data from the Gambia. Evidence indicates that land available for cultivation is allocated unequally across households; and that factor transfers are more common between neighbors, co-ethnics, and kinship-related households. Does this lead to the conclusion that land inequality is due to flows of land between households being impeded by social divisions? To answer this question, a novel methodology that approaches exhaustive data on dyadic flows from an aggregate point of view is introduced. Land transfers lead to a more equal distribution of land and to more comparable factor ratios across households in general. But equalizing transfers of land are not more likely within ethnic or kinship groups. In conclusion, ethnic and kinship divisions do not hinder land and labor transfers in a way that contributes to aggregate factor inequality. Labor transfers do not equilibrate factor ratios across households. But it cannot be ruled out that they serve a beneficial role, for example, to deal with unanticipated health shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been argued that the legal system does not have a strong role in explaining China's economic miracle; therefore, China is often presented as an anomaly for the "law matters" hypothesis. This study contributes to the debate from a unique perspective by examining the connection between law and the operation of factor markets. In China, laws and regulations governing factor markets have been systematically distorted by the government, intentionally or unintentionally, to facilitate the nation's enormous economic growth in the short run at the cost of environmental quality, ordinary citizens' welfare, and long-term economic health. Thus, China has become a fast-growing but unsustainable economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because the evidence is meagre, this article takes a qualitative rather than a quantitative approach to the markets of land, labour, and capital in Hellenistic and Parthian Babylonia. The evidence consists of administrative documents from Babylon and Uruk (Babylonian clay tablets in cuneiform script), from Dura Europos on parchment or papyrus (in Greek and Aramaic), and from Avroman in (Greek and Pahlavi). These texts suggest that the land market was restricted by the legal rights of king and temple. There is little information on wage labour. Slave labour existed, but neither its role in the economy nor the importance of the slave trade has been adequately assessed. The use of credit, interest, cheques, and other financial instruments is attested, but its significance is small, not least because of the prevalence of iconic interest rates of 20%, set by tradition rather than by market forces. As far as the evidence goes, the markets for land, labour, and capital were restricted by tradition and by the claims of king and temples on land, while the commodity markets were much more market-oriented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the evidence for the existence of a labour market, a market for agricultural land, and a market for capital in Babylonia from the sixth to the third century BCE. The argument is informed by our current understanding of the performance of Babylonian commodity markets, for which abundant quantitative information is available. I attempt to establish a connection between the general political and socio-economic development in Babylonia from the sixth century onwards and the increase and decrease of the role that can be attributed to factor markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconstructs the organization and development of factor markets in early medieval Iraq. It shows that from the late Sasanian period on, and accelerating in the early Islamic period, there was a relatively unrestricted functioning of markets for goods, labour, and capital. This stimulated market exchange, associated with growing monetization of the economy, especially in the towns, but also in the countryside, even though coercion remained more pronounced there. We hypothesize that these developments brought economic dynamism but simultaneously increased inequality and furthered the rise of new, powerful elite groups, causing the decline of the same markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Factor supply increases (depresses) output for many of the same reasons that the government spending multiplier might be less (greater) than one. Data from three 2008-9 recession episodes--the labor supply shifts associated with the seasonal cycle, the 2009 federal minimum wage hike, and the collapse of residential construction spending--clearly show that markets absorb an increased supply of factors of production by increasing output. The findings contradict the "paradox of toil" and suggest that government purchases and marginal tax rates reduce private consumption, even during the recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource-based researchers are finding considerable support for the association between the creation and application of organizational capabilities and competitive advantage. However, measuring organizational capabilities presents empirical researchers with substantial difficulties. This study proposes quasi-experimental research design and panel data estimation techniques for future empirical work on capabilities: this approach takes advantage of more easily measured resources transferred in the strategic factor market to elicit what otherwise would be unknowable capabilities. This approach also allows researchers to uncover how, when building organizational capabilities through factor market resource acquisitions, firms differ significantly in their ability to leverage tangible and intangible complementary resources to enhance the operational performance of acquired resources. This empirical approach is illustrated through an investigation of the US international airline industry from 1983 to 1992, during which time the industry experienced a significant transfer in the rights to operate US international routes. The results of the analysis demonstrate how quasi-experimental design, when coupled with panel data estimation techniques, is a powerful econometric strategy for researchers interested in modeling heterogeneity in firm capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic theory suggests that trade liberalization rewards relatively abundant factors of production -- labor in most economically developing countries. In South Africa, trade liberalization has not benefited the locally abundant factor (unskilled labor). Instead, unemployment remains stubbornly high. The legacy of apartheid explains this surprising result; apartheid distorted factor markets (including patterns in land ownership, unionization, investment, infrastructural development and more). The gains from trade will remain elusive unless the Government engages in policies targeting flexibility in factor markets to support trade adjustment. ANC governments have introduced some policies along these lines, but have refrained from taking on certain politically powerful constituencies within their own party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural is the property of Sociedade Brasileira de Economia e Sociologia Rural and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper assesses the impact of access to a telephone on rural households’ factor market opportunities. It answers two questions. First, does the use of a telephone have any impact on rural households’ factor market participation? Second, correcting for market participation, does the use of a telephone have any impact on the type of factor market participation? For the first question, the paper uses a bivariate probit to correct for omitted variable bias and for the second question, the paper uses a two-stage probit. The empirical findings suggest that access to a telephone has a significant positive impact on factor market participation. The difference in market participation between telephone users and non-users is around 14%. However, once a household participates in the market, the use of a telephone does not have any impact on specific factor market participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explicit modelling of factor markets clarifies two fundamental aspects of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC). First, we clarify the relationship between output and marginal cost. Second, for the NKPC in inflation—output space, we identify the key stochastic influences on inflation without recourse to ad hoc cost or excess demand shocks. The econometric implementation of this clarified NKPC, which evolves strictly according news on the stream of future marginal costs, allows us jointly to derive inflation as a forecast of future variables. Our approach clarifies the empirical successes and failures of the NKPC and allows us to provide new aggregate evidence on the degree of price rigidity in the UK economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]