Article

Does Social Pressure Hinder Entrepreneurship in Africa? The Forced Mutual Help Hypothesis

Philippe Alby, Emmanuelle Auriol et Pierre Nguimkeu

Résumé

In the absence of a public safety net, wealthy Africans have the social obligation to share their re- sources with their needy relatives in the form of cash transfers and inefficient family hiring. We develop a model of entrepreneurial choice that accounts for this social redistributive constraint. We derive pre- dictions regarding employment choices, productivity, and profitability of firms ran by entrepreneurs of African versus non-African origin. Everything else equal, local firms are over-staffed and less productive than firms owned by nonlocals, which discourages local entrepreneurship. Using data from the manu- facturing sector, we illustrate the theory by structurally estimating the proportion of missing African entrepreneurs. Our estimates, which are suggestive due to the data limitation, vary between 8% and 12.6% of the formal sector workforce. Implications for the role of social protection are discussed.

Mots-clés

Entrepreneurship; Family Solidarity; Formal Sector; Africa;

Codes JEL

  • C51: Model Construction and Estimation
  • H53: Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
  • H55: Social Security and Public Pensions
  • O14: Industrialization • Manufacturing and Service Industries • Choice of Technology
  • O17: Formal and Informal Sectors • Shadow Economy • Institutional Arrangements
  • O55: Africa

Remplace

Philippe Alby, Emmanuelle Auriol et Pierre Nguimkeu, « Does Social Pressure Hinder Entrepreneurship in Africa? The Forced Mutual Help Hypothesis », TSE Working Paper, n° 18-956, septembre 2018.

Référence

Philippe Alby, Emmanuelle Auriol et Pierre Nguimkeu, « Does Social Pressure Hinder Entrepreneurship in Africa? The Forced Mutual Help Hypothesis », Economica, vol. 87, n° 346, avril 2020, p. 299–327.

Publié dans

Economica, vol. 87, n° 346, avril 2020, p. 299–327