The Unofficial Economy and Economic Development
基于世界银行企业调查数据，发现发展中国家非正规企业规模小、生产率极低，而正规企业由教育程度更高的管理者运营、使用更多资本和外部融资，支持了二元经济理论，即发展来自高生产率正规企业的创建。
In developing countries, informal firms account for up to about half of all economic activity. Using data from World Bank firm-level surveys, we find that informal firms are small and extremely unproductive compared with even the small formal firms in the sample, and especially relative to the larger formal firms. Formal firms are run by much better educated managers than informal ones and use more capital, have different customers, market their products, and use more external finance. Few formal firms have ever operated informally. This evidence supports the dual economy (“Wal-Mart”) theory of development, in which growth comes about from the creation of highly productive formal firms. Informal firms keep millions of people alive but disappear as the economy develops.