Employing a unique dataset that covers almost 6000 informal enterprises from six West African urban centers, this paper examines the backward and forward linkages of these enterprises to the formal sector. We first provide a descriptive analysis of the existing formal-informal linkages. It turns...

Employing a unique dataset that covers households from six West African capitals, this paper provides new evidence on the demand for informal sector products and services. We first investigate whether demand linkages exist between formal and informal products and distribution channels, and...

Employing a unique dataset that covers households from six West African capitals, this paper provides new evidence on the demand for informal sector products and services. We first investigate whether demand linkages exist between formal and informal products and distribution channels, and...

The paper uses micro-level data obtained from surveying informal and formal small textile producers in Bolivia to estimate the economic returns to social capital. Social capital is defined as being linked to other individuals. The paper studies forms of social links that vary with respect to...

This paper studies the role of income distribution as a determinant of the size of the informal sector in an economy by relying on a channel whereby inequality affects the behaviour of aggregate demand and thus influences the incentives a firm has to become informal. It is further postulated...

We present a three-sector general equilibrium model with an informal sector, which produces an intermediary for the formal sector, and analyze the effects of different policies on the environmental standard and welfare of the economy. Since the informal manufacturing sector creates pollution,...

This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing controversy on the distributional effects of structural reforms in developing countries. To this end, we set up a small-scale macroeconomic model of a dual economy to capture the transmission mechanisms through which the deregulation of product and...

The issue of whether government capital is productive has received a great deal of recent attention. Yet empirical analyses of public capital productivity have generally been limited to the official capital stock estimates available in a small sample of countries. Alternatively, many researchers...

In an endogenous-growth model, we consider alternative ways of providing public capital using distortionary taxes. We show that if the government provides the good, the resulting growth rate and welfare may or may not be higher than under laissez-faire. By contrast, if the government subsidizes...

Unlike in Asia, the manufacturing sector has not (yet) become a driver of structural change in Africa. One common explanation is that the natural resource-focus of many African economies leads to Dutch disease effects. To test this argument for the case of newly found oil in Ghana we develop a...