Constrained Gazelles: High Potentials in West Africa’s Informal Economy.

New publication in World Development by Michael Grimm, Peter Knorringa and Jann Lay.

Summary

The informal sector is typically characterized as being very heterogeneous and possibly composed of two clearly distinct segments, sometimes called the lower and upper tiers. However, empirical evidence shows that even among lower tier entrepreneurs profitability can be quite high. We combine these findings and develop an innovative approach to identify what we call “constrained gazelles”, next to the well-known survivalists in the lower tier and growth-oriented top-performers in the upper tier. Our sample of informal entrepreneurs in seven West-African countries allows to link the relative size of these three groups to the structural and macroeconomic environment in these countries.

This research is part of a project entitled “Unlocking potential: Tackling economic, institutional and social constraints of informal entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa” (http://www.iss.nl/informality) funded by the Austrian, German, Norwegian, Korean and Swiss Government through the World Bank’s Multi Donor Trust Fund Project: “Labor Markets, Job Creation, and Economic Growth, Scaling up Research, Capacity Building, and Action on the Ground”.

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The full paper is accessible here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.03.009