Informal entrepreneurship in developing economies: the impacts of starting-up unregistered on firm performance

To advance understanding of the entrepreneurship process in developing economies, this paper evaluates whether registered enterprises that initially avoid the cost of registration, and focus their resources on overcoming other liabilities of newness, lay a stronger foundation for subsequent growth. Analyzing World Bank Enterprise Survey data across 127 countries, and controlling for other firm performance determinants, registered enterprises that started-up unregistered and spent longer operating unregistered are revealed to have significantly higher subsequent annual sales, employment and productivity growth rates compared with those that registered from the outset. The theoretical and policy implications are then discussed

Starting-up unregistered and firm performance in Turkey

© 2016 The Author(s) Recent years have seen a questioning of the negative representation of informal sector entrepreneurship and an emergent view that it may offer significant benefits. This paper advances this rethinking by evaluating the relationship between business registration and future firm performance. Until now, the assumption has been that starting-up unregistered is linked to weaker firm performance. Using World Bank Enterprise Survey data on 2494 formal enterprises in Turkey, and controlling for other determinants of firm performance as well as the endogeneity of the registration decision, the finding is that formal enterprises that started-up unregistered and spent longer unregistered have significantly higher subsequent annual sales and productivity growth rates compared with those registered from the outset. This is argued to be because in such weak institutional environments, the advantages of registering from the outset are outweighed by the benefits of deferring business registration and the low risks of detection and punishment. The resultant implication is that there is a need to shift away from the conventional eradication approach based on the negative depiction of informal entrepreneurship as poorly performing, and towards a more facilitating approach that improves the benefits of business registration and tackles the systemic formal institutional deficiencies that lead entrepreneurs to decide to delay the registration of their ventures

Optimization of Fixed-Bed Methanation Reactors: Safe and Efficient Operation under Transient and Steady-State Conditions

ACLInternational audienceDesigning and optimizing packed-bed methanation reactors for power-to-gas leads to conflicting issues. Because of the high exothermicity of the reaction, it might be inefficient (low Gas Hourly Space Velocity), or unsafe (runaway, thermal degradation). Dynamically operating reactors are thus particularly difficult to design. In this paper, the behavior of a reactor with multiple catalyst-dilution zones is studied numerically. Simulations of a dynamic sequence (reactor startup) are carried out. The effect of catalyst dilution profile on steady state and transient efficiency is analyzed. We introduce a method to maximize GHSV, while guarantying safe operation during both transient and steady state operation. A proper catalyst dilution profile can increase the steady state efficiency and stability of the reactor. However, the results of the present study show that this dilution profile can have a negative impact on transient efficiency and stability. \textcopyright 2018 Elsevier Lt