拥有受过更多教育的所有者的非正式企业是否采用了更好的商业实践？来自中非共和国的证据

11280 Do Informal Businesses with More-EducatedOwners Adopt Better Business Practices? Evidence from the Central African Republic Mohammad AminAsif M. IslamDebasmita Padhi Development EconomicsGlobal Indicators GroupJanuary 2026 A verified reproducibility package for this paper isavailable athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org,clickherefor direct access. Policy Research Working Paper11280 Abstract practices considered by about 10 percentage points. Thenumber of business practices adopted increases by 0.66(against a mean value of 1.7). The paper shows that the pos-itive impact of education is most likely causal using entropybalancing, inverse probability weighting, the Oster test forselection on observables, and the impact of the AIDS epi-demic in the latter half of the 1990s on school enrollmentas an instrument for the education level of current businessowners. The analysis also finds significant heterogeneities inthe relationship between education and business practices.Belonging to a business association and a business owner’spast experience in the industry may compensate for a lackof formal education, while the use of electricity, manu-facturing versus services activity, and location in Banguicity versus Berberati complement and magnify the positiveeffect of education. The paper discusses several avenues forfuture research. The business practices of unregistered or informal enter-prises can significantly affect their performance and theoverall productivity of the sector. However, very little isknown about the prevalence of business practices and thesorts of factors that influence their adoption among infor-mal enterprises. This is especially the case in the context offragile economies. The present paper attempts to fill thisgap in the literature by analyzing the adoption of businesspractices among informal enterprises in the Central AfricanRepublic, which serves as a unique context—high infor-mality, low education attainment, and recurrent shocksincluding conflict and the AIDS epidemic. While severalfactors correlated with the decision to adopt business prac-tices are uncovered, the focus is on the education level ofthe business owner or manager. A conservative estimatesuggests that relative to no education or up to primaryeducation, secondary or higher education increases thelikelihood of adopting one or more of the nine business This paper is a product of the Global Indicators Group, Development Economics. It is part of a larger effort by the WorldBank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world.Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may becontacted at mamin@worldbank.org. A verified reproducibility package for this paper is available athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org, clickherefor direct access. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely thoseof the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank andits affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Do Informal Businesses with More-Educated Owners Adopt Better BusinessPractices? Evidence from the Central African Republic By: Mohammad Amin*, Asif M. Islam**, and Debasmita Padhi*** JEL Codes: L23, D22, L26, O55Keywords: Business practices, Informal sector, Education, Central African Republic The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. Theydo not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/WorldBank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or thegovernments they represent. We thank the Enterprise Analysis Unit of the Development Economics Global Indicators Department of theWorld Bank Group for making the data available. All remaining errors are our own. 1. Introduction Management or business practices defined as structured processes and techniques used by firms toorganize, monitor, and improve their operations can have a significant impact on firm performanceand the overall growth and development of the private sector. While studies have examined thesepractices for the case of registered or formal firms, there is very little work on the adoption ofbusiness practices by unregistered or informal enterprises and their effects, especially in thecontext of conflict and fragility. The present paper attempts to fill this gap in the li