I develop a dynamic model of forward-looking entrepreneurs, who decide whether to operate in the formal economy or informal economy and choose how much to invest in their businesses, taking government policy as given. The government has access to two policy tools: taxes on formal business...

The transition economies have lower rates of entrepreneurship than are observed in most developed and developing market economies. The difference is even more marked in the countries of the former Soviet Union than those of Central and Eastern Europe. We link these differences partly with the...

This paper extends Evans and Jovanovic (1989)'s entrepreneurship model to incorporate the informal sector. Specifically, entrepreneurs can operate either in the formal sector - in which they have limited access to credit markets and must pay taxes - or in the informal sector - in which they can...

In recent years, it has become common to represent entrepreneurs as either necessity- or opportunity-driven. Drawing upon face-to-face interviews in England with 70 entrepreneurs trading wholly or partially off-the-books, this paper evaluates critically this dichotomous representation. The...

In the present paper an empirical analysis will point out that shadow economy is an obstacle to entrepreneurship. The sample covers EU and the USA. The elaboration of these panel data is made feasible through the Eviews software package

This paper evaluates critically the popular structuralist representation that those operating in the informal sector are marginalized populations working as dependent employees out of economic necessity and in the absence of alternative means of livelihood. Reporting an empirical study of 1,518...

How many entrepreneurs start-up their business ventures conducting some or all of their trade in the informal economy? The aim of this paper is to answer this key question that has been seldom addressed using data from 600 face-to-face structured interviews conducted in Ukraine in late 2005 and...

Mirroring the representation of informal workers in a third world context as displaying entrepreneurial qualities, recent years have witnessed the emergence of a similar view of the informal sector in western nations as a hidden enterprise culture. Until now, however, few attempts have been made...

In recent decades, the field of entrepreneurship studies has become increasingly interested in the relationship between entrepreneurship and the informal economy. This paper reviews this burgeoning sub-field of entrepreneurship studies that recognizes how entrepreneurs do not always conduct...