This chapter argues that while informal entrepreneurship is important in transition economies (for economic growth, job generation, and welfare improvement), it opens informal entrepreneurs to bribery requests because of their non-official status. With empirical evidence from Vietnam, this chapter demonstrates that the likelihood of bribery is determined by a firm's attributes. Building on a unique dataset of 352 entrepreneurs in informal firms in Vietnam, this chapter is able to quantify bribery at the firm level and measure key concepts. The empirical findings confirm the key assumption that entrepreneurs operating in the informal sector of the same country may vary in their propensity to pay bribes due to pressure resulting from (a) factors that are specific to the firms, or (b) factors specific to their perceptions of the environment.
The propensity to pay dividends: empirical evidence from the MENA region
