This project has two basic objectives. First, we analyse the stylised facts that characterise price setting behaviour in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
This study examines the extent of market integration within the West African sub-region using the theory of “law of one price”. The dataset covers three countries: Nigeria, Benin and Togo accounting for about three quarters of the sub-region economy.
This paper studies how stronger property rights on a micro-business affect entrepreneurs intra-household bargaining power, investment decisions and the extend to which they are constrained by their household in Benin.
Efforts to bring informal firms into the formal sector are often based on a view that this will bring benefits to the firms themselves, or at least benefit governments through increasing the tax base.
Using a randomized experiment, the authors show that enhancing the benefits of formalization through personalized assistance induces more firms to formalize.
In April 2014, the Government of Benin launched the entreprenant status, a simplified and free legal regime offered to small informal businesses to enter the formal economy.
The research team conducts an impact evaluation of the entreprenant status on formalization in Benin by conducting a randomized controlled trial offering different packages of incentives to informal businesses.
