Is there a policy rationale for actively trying to encourage small firms to formalise? In the last two decades, hundreds of regulatory reforms have been implemented in countries across the world with the primary objective of making it easier to formally register a business.
This paper by Anderson, Chandy and Zia (2017), published in Management Science, examines the impact of improvements in marketing skills relative to finance skills among small business owners.
Despite the importance of agglomeration externalities in theoretical work, evidence for their nature, scale, and scope remains elusive, particularly in developing countries.
Nchake, Edwards and Sundaram (2018) study the relationship between price-setting behavior and the degree of competition in a setting where markets and information flows are relatively imperfect.
This working paper by Galle (2018) demonstrates a dual impact of increased competition on misallocation in a setting with both oligopolistic competition and financial constraints.
