License to sell : the effect of business registration reform on entrepreneurial activity in Mexico, Vol. 1 of 1

About

Countries

Data & Research

Learning

News

Projects & Operations

Publications

Topics

Home > Data & Research > Document Search > Report Details

License to sell : the effect of business registration reform on entrepreneurial activity in Mexico

Author:	Bruhn, Miriam;	Collection Title:	Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 4538
Country:	Mexico;	Date Stored:	2008/02/28
Document Date:	2008/02/01	Document Type:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English	Region:	Latin America & Caribbean
Report Number:	WPS4538	SubTopics:	; Labor Policies; E-Business; Business Environment; Competitiveness and Competition Policy
Volume No:	1 of 1

Summary: This paper studies the effect of business registration regulation on economic activity using micro-level data. The identification strategy exploits the fact that a recent business registration reform in Mexico was introduced in different municipalities at different points in time. Using panel data from the Mexican employment survey, I find that the reform increased the number of registered businesses by 5 percent in eligible industries. This increase was due to former wage earners opening businesses. Former unregistered business owners were not more likely to register their business after the reform. Moreover, employment in eligible industries went up by 2.8 percent, and people who were previously unemployed or out of the labor force were more likely to work as wage earners after the reform. Finally, the results imply that the competition from new entrants lowered prices by 0.6 percent and decreased the income of incumbent businesses by 3.2 percent.


Official Documents Official, scanned versions of documents (may include signatures, etc.)
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 54 pages	Official version*	0.35
	Text	Text version**

* The official version is derived from scanning the final, paper copy of the document and is the official,
archived version including all signatures, charts, etc.

** The text version is the OCR text of the final scanned version and is not an accurate representation of the final text.
It is provided solely to benefit users with slow connectivity.

Permanent URL for this page: http://go.worldbank.org/OD4FMURPV0