Formal and informal entrepreneurship: a cross-country policy perspective.

This paper distinguishes between formal and informal entrepreneurship. It theorises that each are influenced by very different combinations of macro-economic factors and strongly moderated by country income levels. Empirically, we show the ease of starting a business and high-quality governance, exert a powerful influence on formal, but not informal entrepreneurship. The latter is influenced by self-employment rates in low-income countries and by female labour force participation in high-income countries. Policy-makers seeking to improve economic welfare through enhancing entrepreneurship therefore have to choose the 'type' of entrepreneurship on which to focus and then select appropriate policies. By providing a novel grouping of these policies, we are able to assist them in making these choices. Plain English Summary: Policy-makers: Decide what type of entrepreneurship you want for your country and, only then, choose your policies, because 'one size doesn't fit all.' Entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from informal street market traders on the one hand to formal tech giants in majestic offices on the other. The view of most governments is that entrepreneurship is 'good' because it not only provides employment for the market trader and for the tech giant, but also for many others in the economy. Governments therefore spend taxpayers' money funding entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses, but this raises two key questions: first, should it be the formal tech giant, or the informal street trader, that receives public funds and second, how should these be provided? Our conclusion, based on evidence from more than 80 high- and low-income countries, is that effective policy not only has to take account of the formal/informal distinction and the income level of the country, but also how that policy is delivered. We show that, in low-income countries, formal entrepreneurship is more likely to be enhanced by state policies to promote education and female activity rates; it is less likely to be stimulated by the creation of more enterprises. This is because relatively few informal enterprises subsequently make the transition to formality and to significant job creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]