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Transaction Costs in Peru:
How much does it cost to start a formal garment firm in
Lima?
(work in-progress)
Miguel Jaramillo Baanante∗
Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Internacional
Society for Neo
Institutional Economics∗∗
Tucson, September 2004
∗ Senior Researcher, Group of Analysis for Development – GRADE.
∗∗ Research sponsored by the Tinker Foundation, the Center for
International Private Enterprise and the Ronald Coase
Institute.
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1. Introduction
Among traditional and less developed societies transaction costs
are usually high. For this
reason, personal relations acquire great relevance for the
accomplishment of commercial
exchanges. In this type of contexts, transactions take place
between those who know each
other, reputation has an elevated value among agents, and the
informal rules are almost
always sufficient. This allows individuals to exchange at low
cost. However, in order for a
society to develop economically, it is necessary to expand
markets through the
multiplication of varied and complex transactions, often
requiring impersonal exchange.
The more transactions are made in an economy, the greater the
market extension and,
consequently, the greater the progress in the division of labor
and the possibilities of wealth
growth. Thus, public institutions should be oriented to
guaranteeing low transaction costs.
Unfortunately, developing countries tend not to have the types
of institutional framework
that produce low transaction costs. Because of excess of
regulation and poor performance
of agencies in charge of guaranteeing the enforcement of
contracts and property rights,
many productive activities are not carried out, and most of
those that take place have low
levels of productivity. Given the important conceptual
relationship between the level of
development of societies and transaction costs, it is critical
to measure these costs and
monitor them through time. In this direction, in the last two
decades, and largely inspired
by the pioneering work of Douglass North, Ronald Coase, Oliver
Williamson, efforts have
been made to identify and analyze the normative burden that face
economic sectors in
developing countries1. Very few of them, however, have focused
on the measurement of the
transaction costs individuals who decide, at their own risk, to
initiate independent
commercial activities face. These costs include those related to
compliance with rules and
norms for opening a business, operating it and even closing it.
The work presented here
intends to contribute to the empirics of transaction costs
through the measurement of costs
faced by micro and small apparel industralists of Peru in
opening their businesses and
operating them formally.
1 A recent example of a study oriented to development problems
can be found in World Bank, 1998.
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Since high formalization costs imposed by public agencies are
frequently thought of as the
cause for many small firms to operate informally, costs of
establishing and running
formally a small firm, and measurement thereof, must be
important. Conceptually, these
costs limit their possibilities of growth by hindering the
firm’s ability to engage in
contracts. Specifically, access to formal credit markets may be
restricted and, consequently,
firms may be forced to underinvest. From a macro perspective,
the contribution that this
enterprising sector can do for the growth of the economy, the
generation of wealth and
poverty reduction is limited. In spite of these potentially
negative effects there are not
adequate empirical measures of formalization costs.
This document presents the results of a pilot implementation of
a methodology for
measurement of the costs of establishing a small garment firm in
Lima, Peru. This
methodology has been developed through a long process by the
Ronald Coase Institute and
is now being applied in several countries. It is based on
information collected directly from
the entrepreneur. The results, preliminary, in correspondance
with the pilot character of the
study, indicate that registration costs are high, compared to
those in developed countries.
However, comparison with data for mid-eighties suggests that
there has been a remarkable
simplification in procedures, and a consequent reduction in both
the costs of registering a
firm and the length of the process. In addition, significant
variation in the costs from firm to
firm is found.
The text is organized as follows. After this introduction, next
section discusses the
characteristics of the methodology, comparing it to others
previously implemented. The
third section presents the results of the exercise while the
fourth concludes.
2. Methodological aspects
Costs of exchange have been systematically analyzed from the
institutional perspective.
Initial empirical research focused on macroeconomic data,
showing the importance of
transactions costs in an economy (Wallis and North, 1986). At
the microeconomic level, the
pioneering work of De Soto (1986) attracted the attention of a
broad international audience
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to the discussion of the costs of formally establishing a
business in developing countries.
Following a quite simple methodology, this author elaborated
estimates of the costs that a
garment industrialist in Lima had to face in order to formalize
his activities. The
methodology was based on a case study, or as his author
describes it, on a simulation. In
effect, the methodological strategy consisted in organizing a
team to carry out the whole
process of formally establishing a small garment factory in an
industrial zone of Lima.
They followed the procedures necessary to register this firm
step by step, with the advise of
a lawyer specialized in Administrative Law. With all its
ingenuity and illustrating power,
the methodological approach shares the limitations of any case
study: costs can vary with
the characteristics of the industralist and the place where the
firm is installed. Also,
entrepreneurs can develop strategies, i.e., “technology”, to
reduce the costs and duration of
these processes, which a case study cannot identify. The
generalization of the findings is,
thus, questionable.
More recently, the World Bank Group has initiated an effort
oriented to promote private
sector development and reduce poverty through a monitoring of
the "climate for business"
in a broad sample of countries. Among other objectives, the
"Doing Business" project
intends to motivate reforms oriented to promote stimulating and
healthy contexts for
businesses through a benchmarking of countries (World Bank,
2004)2. The most recent
publication presents results of a survey, incorporating data
from 130 countries, focuses on
the requirements and procedures that an average small firm has
to fulfill in order to operate
formally3. The methodology used focuses on the evaluation of
norms and regulations that
concern a small business. The different procedures necessary to
be formal were identified
with the help of local experts. Then, the costs and the time
needed by an entrepreneur to
fulfill each procedure under normal circumstances were
calculated. Normal circumstance
was defined assuming that any person on his/her own can follow
the required steps, that the
involved public institutions were efficient, and that there was
no possibility of corruption
that could influence the length/cost of the process.
2 Other objectives include: to promote information for the
reforms design, to encourage initiatives for the effective
development, and to contrast empirical evidence with the regulation
theory. 3 Costs of opening a business constitute one aspect of this
survey, but other essential activities within a firm are also
studied: hiring workers, requesting credit, signing contracts and
filing bankruptcy.
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In order to make the data comparable across countries, a
“typical” firm with the following
characteristics was selected:
- Size: 50 or more workers
- Location: the most important city of the country
- Structure of property: not less than five shareholders
- Property: 100 percent national
- Start up capital: equivalent to ten times per-capita national
income.
The possiblity of making comparisons on the costs of legally
operating a firm in different
countries is a strong point in favor of this methodology.
However, it has the disadvantage
of using simplified assumptions that contrast with the reality
of many countries. For
instance, it must ignore the existence of a positive
relationship between the volume of red
tape and the magnitude of corruption, assuming that all
processes are fulfilled with faithful
adherence to the letter of the law. An additional problem is
that the “typical firm” chosen
may be more representative of the majority of small firms in
certain countries than in
others. Unfortunately, in the Peruvian case the “typical firm”
is not representative of the
universe of the micro and small enterprises. According to the
last National Economic
Census (1993) almost 98 percent of businesses had less than 20
workers. In addition, the
initial capital demanded is relatively high for Peruvian
standards and the concurrence of
five partners, rather uncommon.
Neither the World Bank (2004) nor De Soto (1986) considers the
fact that costs can vary
with the characteristics of the individuals, as well as with
other location-specific factors.
Conceptually, one would think that the education of the
entrepreneur may influence the
costs of the formalization process; indeed, the more complex the
procedures, the greater the
importance of the educational level of the industralist. In some
contexts, it is also possible
that the legislation or the regular practice of government
officials will increase the costs for
women or certain ethnic groups4. More generally, if we think
about the formalization cost
4 Berham and Berham (2003) argue that prices vary not only
according to the location, but also according to the
characteristics of those involved in the exchange.
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of establishing a business as the opportunity cost of the
resources allocated to this
objective, the time of the industralist and his/her
collaborators is a key component. The
value of this time is related to individual characteristics:
education, general experience,
specific experience, etc. The cost of the industrialist time
will also affect its behavior in
relation to the process. Indeed, he faces different
technological options: to do it himself or
delegate it to an employee of his, or maybe even hire the
services of a specialist through the
market. Identifying factors related to the characteristics of
the industralist and his context
that increase or reduce this specific transaction cost can allow
us to better understand the
process and to produce more precise and relevant policy
recommendations.
This study’s approach
This document is part of a set of studies that share the same
methodological instrument,
which was developed in the Institute Ronald Coase to study and
measure transaction costs5.
In general, the instrument RCI - COE measures the costs in which
an agent incurs when
carrying out a certain transaction. The information is obtained
through a detailed
questionnaire, which is applied directly to the person in charge
of the process. This time,
transaction costs related to the formalization process faced by
small firms of Lima’s apparel
industry are studied. As discussed in the previous section,
although prior work offers
important contributions to the study of formalization costs, it
presents important
methodological limitations. The methodology used here overcomes
these limitations,
because the information is taken directly from the entrepreneur,
it is not assumed that the
transaction costs are similar for each agent, and firms in our
sample are closer to the typical
micro and small firm of the sector.
For this exercise information was collected from a sample of 120
micro and small
industralists of the garment sector located in the three main
conglomerates of this industry
5 "Measuring the Costs of Exchange," in Institutions, Contracts
and Organizations: Perspectives from New Institutional Economics,
ed. Claude Ménard, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2000, pp. 367-375
, online at
http://www.cipe.org/programs/informalsector/articles/measuring.htm
and “The Costs of Exchange,” working paper, 2001, online at
http://coase.org/w-benham2001thecostsofexchange.pdf.
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in the city of Lima6. The information was collected through a
questionnaire administered in
the industralists’ establishment7. Preferably information was
provided by the person in
charge of the formalization process. If that person was not
available, the next best option
was to interview the business owner. This was considered an
adequate observation because
among small firms owners are "do-it-all" people involved in all
aspects of the business.
Eighty percent of the surveys were applied to the owners or
managers of the firms while in
20 percent of the cases the information was collected from other
employees.
Estimation of the duration and cost of the firms’ formalization
process
The first step in the estimation of the cost and duration of the
formalization process was to
identify the firms that had completed the process. Out of the
120 firms in which interviews
occurred 32 operated informally8. After this, average length and
cost of the formalization
process were estimated conditioning on firms having completed
the process 9. This need not
be the average length/cost for all firms, since some may be
discouraged to even start the
process. It may be that the cost for these firms is different,
possibly because those firms are
different to start with. At this point we do not have the
information to deal with this
selectivity issue. However, a new survey round is now producing
data for this.
The questionnaire data give us three different posibilities to
calculate the duration of the
formalization process: (1) self-report based on the firm’s own
experience, (2) estimation
based on the dates of beginning and end of the process, and (3)
the entrepreneur’s report of
his/her own estimation of how much would it take to open a new
firm. One would expect
that results be positively correlated. In effect, the
correlation between the first two
definitions is not only positive, but also high, 0.9.
Correlations with the third definition are
6 In rigour we cannot guarantee that our sample is
representative because the universe of garment firms created every
year is not known. Figures from the Tax Administration radically
differ from those of municipalities, for instance. 7 The
questionnaire can be obtained from the author on request. 8 Of
these, thirty declared so and the other two were detected by means
of a question on the date they finished the registration process. 9
Those observations considered as outliers were dropped out of the
sample. An observation was considered as an outlier if the
calculated duration was greater than the value of the average
duration plus three times the standard deviation.
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also positive, though the coefficient is not so high (0.49).
This is not surprising, since the
industralists when doing their prognosis consider their own
previous experience as well as
possible changes in the normative context. Here we report
results from the first and third
definitions.
As far as the cost of the formalization process, the instrument
allows two different
estimations. The first considers the opportunity cost of the
time of staff involved in the
process, payments to external help, and official fees. The
second is the industrialist reported
estimate of the total cost of opening a new firm.
The requisites to be formal
The dichotomy formal / informal is not very helpful in
describing firms’ relations with
official regulation in Peru. One can find different levels of
formality, going from firms that
do not have any registry in the formal system whatsoever to
firms that have all the registries
and comply with all their tax payments and obligations. Most
firms are in the middle of
these two situations, complying with some formal obligations but
not with all of them. It is
known that relatively few firms comply with all regulations
while a considerable number
do not fulfill any requirement and operate without official
control. The precise number is
difficult to determine, but it is known that the majority of
them are small and micro firms,
oriented to local markets (Visser, 1996). A hypothesis in
relation to this feature of the
Peruvian entrepreneurial structure is that informal firms avoid
any and all contact with
governmental agencies, since a partial formalization implies a
greater risk of detecttion.
Survey data suggests, however, that firms tend to be more formal
in certain aspects that in
others. Thus, most of them have a Tax Registration Number (RUC),
since without this it is
difficult to carry out transactions with other firms, whereas
the formalities related to labor
aspects are the ones less complied with (Robles et al., 2001;
Jaramillo, 2002).
According to Peruvian Corporate Law firms can adopt different
forms to develop their
activities. Though these forms differ from each other in matters
relating to the number of
people participating, the type of activity they carry out, and
how easy shareholders can sell
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their participation to third parties, they all share the limited
liability character of the firm. In
addition, individuals can conduct their businesses outside the
framework of Corporate Law,
without the benefit of limited liability. This category is
denominated unipersonal firms.
Most micro and small firms fall in this category. They are
subject to a special tax regime
and their legal exposure is different from that of incorporated
firms. Assets of unipersonal
firms are not legally separated from the owner’s, which may
subject to seizure to cover
firm’s obligations. Within our sample, 90 percent are
unipersonal firms.
Table 1 sets out all the requirements that limited liability
firms must fulfill to be considered
fully formal according to Peruvian Corporate Law10. Steps 1
through 4 are not mandatory
for unipersonal firms. This will have important bearing on the
time and cost of the
formalization process.
Table 1. Steps that firms need to complete to be considered as a
formal firm
1. Commercial Name (Certificate of Commercial Search and
Commercial Name Reservation) 2. Trademark (Search, Registry and
Publication) 3. Constitution of Firm (Notaries Fees) 4.
Registration of the Firm in Public Registries 5. Registration of
the Firm in the Unique Registry for Contributors (RUC) 6. Municipal
Authorization and Functioning License 7. Legalization of Accounting
Books and Payroll book
3. Results
On the firms included in the study
Before getting into the analysis of the registration costs
themselves, it is useful to look at a
few key characteristics of the firms in the sample of the study.
Most of them have one
owner, average being 1.1 owners per firm. As far as size, most
interviewed firms were
microfirms, with four workers on average. This is characteristic
of the business
conglomerates in which the survey was applied. As Figure 1
illustrates, 86% of the 120
10 A full description of the formal registration process is in
Jaramillo (2004).
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firms have less than five workers, the statistical mode being
two workers per firm. Average
annual sales of sampled firms are around 15,000 US dollars
(Figure 2).
Figure 1. Firm size
(percentages)
6.7
33.3
20.8 20.8
4.2
10.0
4.2
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
1 2 3 4 5 Between 6and 10
Between 11and 40
Source: Small and micro industrialists survey, 2003
Figure 2. Average annual sales
(US$)
14,9539,736
46,913
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
Total 1-5 workers 6 or more workers
Source: Small and micro industralists, 2003 Elaboration: Own
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On average firms had been operating for 2,6 years before being
interviewed. It must be
noted that the date when a firm began operations does not
necessarily coincide with the
beginning of its activities as a formal firm. That is, it is not
the general case that firms
register formally before initiating their activities. About four
out of ten firms begin to
operate without having concluded their registration processes.
On average, these firms
operate for about year before concluding formalization. If we
consider the existence of the
firm only when its official registration process is finalized,
on average the interviewed
firms are 1,9 years old.
¿Why be formal?
Operating whithin formality imposes significant costs to micro
and small Peruvian
industralists. These are not only related to the registration
process itself, but also include the
costs of staying formal (World Bank, 2004). If these costs are
significant and the economy
is plagued with informality, “why would anyone want to operate
formally?” is not a cynical
question. Is it only the perception of the detection risk that
impels the industralist to be
formal? Evidence gathered in this study suggests there is more
positive motivation as well.
As shown in Table 6, the two main reasons why industralists in
our sample chose to
formalize their activities were: the possibility of accessing a
larger number of suppliers and
customers (85%) and the possibility of obtaining credit from a
formal source (70%).
Avoiding payment of fines and bribes are the following reasons.
Thus, many entrepreneurs
decide to be formal not because of the benefits that it grants,
but, instead, to avoid some of
the costs of being informal. Breaking down results according to
size reveals no significant
differences between firms with up to five workers and those with
six or more. On the
balance, firms tend to perceive advantages from enhanced access
to markets associated to
formality. This result suggests that it may be possible to
reduce informality through
facilitating and making the process of formalization less
onerous. At the same time, this
type of policies would promote the development of small firms
through expanding and
strengthening their links with markets.
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Table 2. Perceived advantages of operating formally
(percentages)
Reason Total 1-5
workers 6 +
workers
1. Access to more suppliers and costumers 85 84.5 88.2
2. Obtain credit from a formal source 70 70.9 64.7
3. Avoid the payment of fines 62.5 60.2 76.5
4. Avoid the payment of bribes 40 39.8 41.2
5. Be able to export 16.7 16.5 17.6
6 Operate on a larger scale or more visibly 15.8 17.5 5.9
7 Use the justice system to demand contract execution 13.3 14.6
5.9
8 Be able to have ads 10 9.7 11.8
9 Oobtain benefits of public programs 3.3 3.9 0 Source: Small
and micro industrialists survey, 2003
Duration of the formalization process
Out of the 120 firms visited only 88 went through all the
formalization process.11 As shown in
Table 3, on average industralists used 69 days to finalize the
process of formalization. Results
by type of firm, firm size and male/female entrepreneurs are
also reported. The process is
longer for limited liability firms, 115 days. It is also longer
for firms with more than 5 workers.
This is because larger firms prefer limited liability
status.
Length of process differs for men and women. On average, women
industralists report
processes 18 days longer. Though the difference is not
statistically significant, it raises the
question of whether there are biases against women either in the
regulations or in the way
they are enforced.
11 We also did the estimates excluding eight firms where the
informant was neither the onwer nor the person in charge of the
formalization process. Results were not statistically
different.
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Table 3. Reported and predicted duration of formalization
process
Reported Predicted
n Duration n Duration
Mean 85 68.9 84 43.8
By type of firm Unipersonal 75 62.7 75 43.7
Limited liability 10 115.3 9 44.8
By firm's size 1-5 workers 70 62.3 69 42.7
6 or more workers 15 99.8 15 49
Sex Male 52 61.8 51 41.8
Female 33 80.0 33 46.9
1/ For this estimation observations considered outliers--those
reporting a duration of less than 5 days or greater than one
year--were dropped. Source: Small and micro industralists, 2003
The industralists also reported the time they think it would
take them to formalize a new
business now (columns 3 and 4). On average, they considered it
would take 44 days to
finish the process. Interestingly, there are no differences on
this for limited liability and
unipersonal firms. Expected length is also similar for men and
women. In addition,
contrasting with the reported duration of the formalization
process already experienced, the
difference in predicted duration between men and women is only
five days. It is interesting
that industralists tend to consider that the formalization of a
new firm would take less time
than the one that indeed took them in their own experience.
However, we cannot say
whether this is the result of perceived changes in the
institutional environment or that they
think prior experience will help them.
Money costs of the formalization process
Small business owners not only dedicate part of their time to
formalize their activities,
supervising the process or running related errands themselves.
In addition, they must
assume costs related to the payment of official fees, assignment
of personnel for the
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completion of procedures involved and other related expenses. In
some instances (two in
our sample), they may even find it necessary to make unofficial
payments in order to
accelerate the process. The technology to carry out the process
can vary from firm to firm.
A considerable portion of firms (43 percent) hired the services
of a person or agency with
the intention to advance at least part of the process. As
expected, this is more frequent (69
percent) within firms with more than five employees, since size
allows for greater
specialization of the entrepreneur in tasks of greater value for
the firm.
One aspect worth emphasizing is the significant variability in
the costs of the formalization
process. The dispersion of this cost shows in the density
function (Figure 3). The evidence
that formal registration costs varies from firm to firm
validates the methodology used here,
by suggesting that this cost can be influenced by
characteristics of the firm, the
entrepreneur, or the strategy used deal with the process.
Figure 3. Empirical density function of the cost of the
formalization process
______ normal density
densidad
1.39583 7.78405
0
.617449
Formalization cost of the firms (in logarithms)
Table 4 sets out estimated costs based on industrialists’ report
and the cost of formalizing a
new firm as predicted by the industrialist. Average cost of the
formalization process
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conditional on having finished it is US$ 117. Industralists
owning a unipersonal firm
incurred a cost (US$ 105) about half that of a limited liability
firm (USS 233). Similar to
the duration of the process, among firms with less than 5
workers the cost of formalization
is smaller, because most of them are unipersonal enterprises.
Also, the formalization
process costs women about 9 percent more than men. The
difference, however, is not
statistically significant. Finally, it should be noted that the
main component of the cost is
oficial fees, accounting for two-thirds (unipersonal) to
three-fourths (limited liability) of
total reported costs.
Tabla 4. Reported and predicted formalization costs
Cost Incurred Predicted Cost
n US $ n US$
Mean 85 117 85 156.5
By type of firm Unipersonal 77 105 76 138.2
Limited liability 8 232.3 9 310.8
By firm's size
1-5 workers 72 108.3 72 145.0
6 or more workers 13 165 13 219.6
Sex
Male 52 113.1 53 148.4
Female 33 123.2 32 169.8
Source: Small and micro industrialists survey, 2003
As far as the entrepreneur’s predictions of how much it would
cost to formally register a
new business, they point out to higher costs. Indeed, according
to those interviewed, the
formalization of a new business would cost about 171 dollars.
Those who own unipersonal
firms consider that this process would cost USS 155, while for
those that established them
as limited liability it would cost approximately USS 311. The
difference of costs between
men and women comes up again, and in this case the test of means
indicates that the
difference is significant.
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What factors determine the duration and cost of the
formalization process?
Since our results suggest that the cost of the firms’
formalization process could be
determined by characteristics of the industralists and their
firms, or the technology they use
for the process, a regression analisys was conducted to explore
determinants. The
considered explanatory variables and descriptive statistics are
in the Appendix.
Table 5. Regressions of the cost of the
formalization process
Formalization
cost
Predicted cost of formalizing
new firm
Sex -0.02 -0.17 (0.08) (1.28) Age 0.02 0.01 (1.44) (1.25)
Education 0.03 -0.05 (0.27) (0.79) Previous experience 0.43 -0.07
(1.89) * (0.5) Type of firm -0.73 -0.42 (2.00) ** (1.92) * Capital
investment 0.03 0.10 (0.3) (1.65) Size 0.01 0.01 (0.45) (0.98)
Outside help 0.53 -0.03 (2.29) ** (0.23) Constant 4.83 5.62 (3.95)
*** (7.96) *** Observations 83 82 R-squared 0.19 0.21 F 2.12 2.49
variables 8 8 Degrees of freedom 74 73 Absolute value of
t-statistic in parenthesis. * significant at 10%; ** significant at
5%; *** significant at 1%
Source: Small and micro industrialists survey, 2003
As shown in Table 5, variables significantly associated with the
cost of formalization are:
the type of firm (unipersonal/limited liability), the hiring of
help from outside the firm for
at least part of the process, and previous experience. As said
above, the process of
registration of a limited liability firm involves additional
steps that make the process more
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expensive, so this result is not surprising. Also, hiring
someone from outside the firm tends
to increase the cost. This is probably compensated by the value
of the industralist’s time or
that of the personnel that is relieved from involvement, since
they can focus on other
activities of the business. The fact that, as noted before, the
largest firms have a greater
propensity to hire outside help, suggests that there are
associated efficiency gains of doing
this. Thirdly, the sign of the previous experience variable is
puzzling. However, it may be
that procedures have changed so much that there is a cost of
“unlearning”. On the predicted
cost of registering a new firm, only the type of firm turns out
significant. Finally, it must be
noted that although the sign of the variable sex is negative,
suggesting an additional cost for
the women, in no case this coefficient turns out statistically
significant12. Overall, results
suggest that costs are more associated to the technology used in
dealing with the process
than with the individual characteristics of the
entrepreneur.
Our results compared to previous studies
In comparing our results to those of previous studies, we find
important differences. Table
6 compares the numbers. The duration of the formalization
process estimated by the World
Bank (2004) is 45 percent greater than the average duration
reported by micro and small
industralists in our survey. In the same line, their cost is
more than four times that estimated
here. However, the most relevant comparison is the one with our
estimates for limited
liability firms, which are the type of firms on which that study
focuses. Even considering
this, big differences on formalization costs are found, although
the difference in the
duration of the process is rather small.
Tabla 6. Comparison of our results with other studies
Jaramillo (2004)
World Bank (2004)
De Soto (1986)
All firms Limited liability
Process lerngth (days) 100 420 68.9 115.3 Cost (US dolars) 510
1200 117.0 232.3
12 If the regression is estimated without dropping outliers,
this variable turns out to be significant in explaining the
predicted cost, but not in explaining the actual cost.
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Also, when comparing with De Soto’s results, we find
considerable differences. De Soto’s
estimated process length is six times greater than ours, whereas
the cost is ten times greater.
This could be due in part to the methodological differences
discussed in a previous section.
However, much of this difference may be explained by a
remarkable reduction in the
duration and cost of the process as a consequence of a normative
reform at the end of the
eighties and early nineties that simplified the process
substantially.
Although, on one hand, there have been significant improvements
in relation to previous
periods and, on the other hand, costs are probably not as high
as the World Bank (2004)
suggests, yet all the same there are important differences with
developed countries in
process length as well as in its cost. Among countries such as
Canada, United States or
New Zealand the process takes less than 5 days (World Bank,
2004). In these same
countries the formalization cost for a limited liability firm
represents about 1 percent of per
capita national income, whereas in Peru it represents over 10
percent. However, results also
suggest that registration costs can hardly represent a serious
impediment to the
formalization of firms. From this perspective, it is not the
cost of formalizing, but that of
staying formal that would be behind the high rates of
informality in the Peruvian economy.
4. Final remarks Average costs and duration of the formalization
process turn out smaller than those found
in previous studies. First, estimates presented here differ from
those of the World Bank
(2004) due to methodological differences. Specifically, the
"typical firm" of their study is
very different from the firms considered in our sample. In fact,
the "typical firm" does not
share the characteristics of the large majority of firms that
are created in Peru. Second,
differences with estimates by De Soto (1986) may be explained by
both methodological
differences as well as normative changes implemented in the last
fifteen years, which were
partly prompted by that study. We conclude that although still
high when compared to
those in developed countries, formal registration costs could
hardly be blamed for the high
rates of informality in Peru.
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18
Our results, preliminary as they are, suggest a mild optimism on
the possibilities of
reducing informality rates. Firms perceive advantages in greater
access to markets,
associated to formality. This result suggests that there is a
demand for formality, and,
therefore, it is possible to reduce informality through
facilitating the registration and
licensing processes. At the same time, this kind of policies can
promote the development of
small firms through expanded market access. In addition, the
largest part of the
formalization cost is explained by official fees. An effort to
reduce these fees may provide
incentives for firms to register formally. However, exclusive
focus on this front, without
consideration of the costs of staying formal, would probably
produce disappointing results.
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19
References
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De Soto. 1986. El Otro Sendero: La Revolución Informal. Bogotá:
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Appendix
Table A1. Variables incorporated in the regression
Variable Description
Sex Dummy: 1 when the interviewed person was a man, 0 in other
cases Age In years
Expresses the educational level of the interviewed person 1
Incomplete primary school 2 Complete primary school 1 Incomplete
high school 2 Complete high school 5 Incomplete superior
Education
6 Complete superior
Dummy: 1 when the person in charge of the process had a previous
Previous experience
experience in the registration of a firm Type of firm Dummy: 1
if the firm is unipersonal, 0 in other cases Capital investment
Logarihtm of the value of capital investment (in nuevos soles) Size
Number of employees of the firm
Dummy: 1 if the firm hired an agent outside the firm Outside
help
Table A2. Descriptive statistics of the variables incorporated
in the regression
Variable Obs. Mean Est. Desv. Min Max
Logarithm of the formalization cost of the firm 85 5.68 0.98
1.61 7.57Logarithm of the formalzation of a new firm 85 6.12 0.58
4.61 7.60Duration of the formalization process of the firm 85 68.89
92.71 5 450Duration of the formalization process of a new firm 84
43.82 31.07 5 210Sex 88 0.61 0.49 0 1Age 88 37.73 10.08 18
59Educative level 88 4.72 1.08 1 6Previous experience 88 0.60 0.49
0 1Type of firm 88 0.89 0.32 0 1Logarithm of the capital investment
85 9.29 1.18 5.99 12.77Size of the firm 88 4.56 6.06 1 40Outside
help 88 0.43 0.50 0 1
Source: Small and micro industrialists survey, 2003