IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/deveco/v78y2005i2p299-321.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Informal sector: The credit market channel

Author

Listed:
  • Straub, Stéphane

Abstract

We build a model of firms' choice between formality and informality. Complying with costly registration procedures allows the firms to benefit from key public goods, enforcement of property rights and contracts, that make the participation in the formal credit market possible. In a moral hazard framework with credit rationing, their decision is shaped by the interaction between the cost of entry into formality, and the relative efficiency of formal versus informal credit mechanisms and their related institutional arrangements. The model is consistent with existing stylized facts on the determinants of informality.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Straub, Stéphane, 2005. "Informal sector: The credit market channel," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 299-321, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:78:y:2005:i:2:p:299-321
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304-3878(05)00068-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "The Regulation of Entry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 1-37.
    2. Johnson, Simon & Kaufmann, Daniel & McMillan, John & Woodruff, Christopher, 2000. "Why do firms hide? Bribes and unofficial activity after communism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 495-520, June.
    3. Simon Johnson & Daniel Kaufman & Andrei Shleifer, 1997. "The Unofficial Economy in Transition," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(2), pages 159-240.
    4. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Guillermo Zamarripa, 2003. "Related Lending," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 231-268.
    5. Alexander Monge-Naranjo & Javier Cascante & Luis J. Hall, 2001. "Enforcement, Contract Design, and Default: Exploring the Financial Markets of Costa Rica," Research Department Publications 3126, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    6. Juan C. Botero & Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2004. "The Regulation of Labor," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1339-1382.
    7. David Dreyer Lassen, 2003. "Ethnic Divisions and the Size of the Informal Sector," EPRU Working Paper Series 03-01, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    8. Bengt Holmstrom & Jean Tirole, 1997. "Financial Intermediation, Loanable Funds, and The Real Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 663-691.
    9. Friedrich Schneider & Dominik Enste, 1999. "Shadow Economies Around the World - Size, Causes, and Consequences," CESifo Working Paper Series 196, CESifo.
    10. La Porta, Rafael & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "Legal Determinants of External Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1131-1150, July.
    11. Andrew Powell & Marcela Cristini & Ramiro Moya, 2001. "The Importance of an Effective Legal System for Credit Markets: The Case of Argentina," Research Department Publications 3125, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    12. Marcouiller, Douglas & Young, Leslie, 1995. "The Black Hole of Graft: The Predatory State and the Informal Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 630-646, June.
    13. Yoshiaki Azuma & Herschel I. Grossman, 2008. "A Theory Of The Informal Sector," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 62-79, March.
    14. Besley, Timothy, 1995. "Savings, credit and insurance," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 36, pages 2123-2207, Elsevier.
    15. Johnson, Simon & Kaufmann, Daniel & Zoido-Lobaton, Pablo, 1998. "Regulatory Discretion and the Unofficial Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 387-392, May.
    16. Levenson, Alec R. & Maloney, William F., 1998. "The informal sector, firm dynamics, and institutional participation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1988, The World Bank.
    17. Loayza, Norman V., 1996. "The economics of the informal sector: a simple model and some empirical evidence from Latin America," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 129-162, December.
    18. Armando Castelar Pinneiro & Célia Cabral, 1999. "Credit Markets in Brazil: The Role of Judicial Enforcement and Other Institutions," Research Department Publications 3066, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    19. Hoff, Karla & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1990. "Imperfect Information and Rural Credit Markets--Puzzles and Policy Perspectives," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 4(3), pages 235-250, September.
    20. Rauch, James E., 1991. "Modelling the informal sector formally," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 33-47, January.
    21. Jay Pil Choi & Marcel Thum, 2005. "Corruption And The Shadow Economy," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 46(3), pages 817-836, August.
    22. Geeta Batra & Daniel Kaufmann & Andrew H. W. Stone, 2003. "Investment Climate Around the World : Voices of the Firms from the World Business Environment Survey," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15143, December.
    23. Lemieux, Thomas & Fortin, Bernard & Frechette, Pierre, 1994. "The Effect of Taxes on Labor Supply in the Underground Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 231-254, March.
    24. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Warlters, Michael, 2005. "Taxation base in developing countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(4), pages 625-646, April.
    25. Lassen, David Dreyer, 2007. "Ethnic divisions, trust, and the size of the informal sector," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 423-438, July.
    26. Dominik H. Enste & Friedrich Schneider, 2000. "Shadow Economies: Size, Causes, and Consequences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 77-114, March.
    27. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Zoido-Lobaton, Pablo, 1999. "Aggregating governance indicators," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2195, The World Bank.
    28. Friedman, Eric & Johnson, Simon & Kaufmann, Daniel & Zoido-Lobaton, Pablo, 2000. "Dodging the grabbing hand: the determinants of unofficial activity in 69 countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 459-493, June.
    29. Yoshiaki Azuma & Herschel I. Grossman, 2008. "A Theory Of The Informal Sector," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 62-79, 03.
    30. Petersen, Mitchell A & Rajan, Raghuram G, 1994. "The Benefits of Lending Relationships: Evidence from Small Business Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-37, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dabla-Norris, Era & Gradstein, Mark & Inchauste, Gabriela, 2008. "What causes firms to hide output? The determinants of informality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1-2), pages 1-27, February.
    2. Russo Francesco Flaviano, 2018. "Informality: the Doorstep of the Legal System," Open Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 49-70, June.
    3. D’Hernoncourt, Johanna & Méon, Pierre-Guillaume, 2012. "The not so dark side of trust: Does trust increase the size of the shadow economy?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 97-121.
    4. Thorsten Beck & Chen Lin & Yue Ma, 2014. "Why Do Firms Evade Taxes? The Role of Information Sharing and Financial Sector Outreach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(2), pages 763-817, April.
    5. Sahnoun, Marwa & Abdennadher, Chokri, 2019. "The nexus between unemployment rate and shadow economy: A comparative analysis of developed and developing countries using a simultaneous-equation model," Economics Discussion Papers 2019-30, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    6. Axel Dreher & Friedrich Schneider, 2010. "Corruption and the shadow economy: an empirical analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 215-238, July.
    7. Zoë Kuehn, 2014. "Tax Rates, Governance, And The Informal Economy In High-Income Countries," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 405-430, January.
    8. Semih Tumen, 2017. "Entrepreneurship in the shadows," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 25(2), pages 239-269, April.
    9. Florencia Verónica Pedroni & Anahí Briozzo & Gabriela Pesce, 2022. "Determinants of unreported income in Latin American companies: a business perspective," International Journal of Economic Policy in Emerging Economies, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 16(1), pages 58-83.
    10. Florencia Verónica Pedroni & Anahí Briozzo & Gabriela Pesce, 2019. "¿Por qué no declarar todo? Determinantes de la subfacturación empresarial en la Argentina," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4186, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    11. Andreas Buehn & Friedrich Schneider, 2012. "Corruption and the shadow economy: like oil and vinegar, like water and fire?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(1), pages 172-194, February.
    12. Carillo, Maria Rosaria & Pugno, Maurizio, 2004. "The underground economy and underdevelopment," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 257-279, September.
    13. Sangeeta Pratap & Erwan Quintin, 2006. "The Informal Sector in Developing Countries: Output, Assets and Employment," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2006-130, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Mitra, Shalini, 2014. "Tax Evasion, Tax Policies and the Role Played by Financial Markets," MPRA Paper 58977, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Antunes, Antonio R. & Cavalcanti, Tiago V. de V., 2007. "Start up costs, limited enforcement, and the hidden economy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 203-224, January.
    16. Afonso, Oscar, 2012. "The impact of public goods and services and public R&D on the non-observed economy size, wages inequality and growth," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 1996-2004.
    17. Beck, T.H.L. & Hoseini, M., 2014. "Informality and Access to Finance : Evidence from India," Other publications TiSEM 00e890f4-bd1a-46ba-9064-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Mitton, Todd, 2008. "Institutions and concentration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 367-394, June.
    19. Robert Gillanders & Sinikka Parviainen, 2018. "Corruption and the shadow economy at the regional level," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 1729-1743, November.
    20. Roberto Dell’Anno & Désirée Teobaldelli, 2015. "Keeping both corruption and the shadow economy in check: the role of decentralization," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(1), pages 1-40, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:78:y:2005:i:2:p:299-321. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/devec .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.