Household Enterprises Research Articles

Adoption of environmental standards and a lack of awareness: evidence from the food and beverage industry in Vietnam

Voluntary approaches to environmental policy can contribute to stemming environmental degradation in developing countries with weak institutions. We evaluate the role of a lack of awareness of a law in explaining the voluntary adoption of environmental certification by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the food and beverage industry in Vietnam. We find that firms, where owners or managers were unaware of the law were 38 percentage points less likely to receive environmental certification. Moreover, this effect is larger for firms that exported, had internet access or paid bribes, and it is weaker for household enterprises. Our results suggest that increasing legal awareness can weaken informational constraints for SMEs, where weak institutions and a lack of information often hamper the uptake of environmental policy initiatives.

Does economic shocks influence household's healthcare expenditure? Evidence from rural Nigeria

Health is profoundly influenced by several factors outside the traditional realm of healthcare. This paper employed a two-step Heckman selectivity model to examine factors influencing the decision to spend on health and the effects of economic shocks on health expenditure. The results from the first stage shows that the likelihood of spending on health increased with age, education, income, and decreases if the household is living in the northern region of Nigeria and uses mosquito bed-net. The findings from the second stage estimation show that a fall in the price of food items, an increase in the price of inputs for household enterprises and loss of job are the significant shocks that affect household health expenditure. Based on these findings, this study concluded that fall in the prices of major food items consumed within the household increased income available for health care among the farmers. Going forward, the study recommends the provision of holistic health-economic-welfare interventions for the marginalized rural populace in Nigeria.

The Arab inequality puzzle: the role of income sources in Egypt and Tunisia

ABSTRACT Egypt and Tunisia are perceived to have high levels of inequality, yet based on standard measures, inequality in these two countries is not unusually high. In this study we explore a different dimension of inequality in Egypt and Tunisia by using a more complete measure of income and decomposing inequality by income sources (factor components). We find that higher-income households have more income sources than lower-income ones. Informal wage work and earnings from household enterprises are more common in Egypt than Tunisia, while formal wage work, pensions, and social assistance are more common in Tunisia. Social assistance does little to offset income inequality in either country. Enterprise earnings (in Egypt) and agricultural earnings (in Tunisia) as well as rent and other capital income in both countries play a large role in inequality. High inequality in these non-wage income sources and unequal access to income sources tied to wealth and capital may help explain why inequality is perceived to be high.

Credit access and the performance of non-farm household enterprises: evidence from Nigerian data

Inadequate availability of credit access is one of the major problems facing household enterprises in developing countries, especially Nigeria. Despite various government interventions aimed at solving this problem, it is still perceived that credit access is a serious challenge facing these enterprises in Nigeria. Hence, this study examined the impact of credit access on the performance of total stock of input supply of non-farm household enterprises in Nigeria. Unlike the bulk of existing studies, we employed multinomial logit regression and used the 2018 General Household Survey data. The stylised facts from the data revealed that non-farm household enterprises in urban areas have greater access to credit than their counterparts in rural areas. Interestingly, the findings indicate that even though a large chunk of the non-farm household enterprises in our sample face the challenge of access to credit, credit access nonetheless impacts significantly and positively on total stock of input supply of non-farm household enterprise in Nigeria. Among others, we recommended that credits to non-farm household enterprises should be adequately monitored not only to enhance the performance of these enterprises but also to ensure that the funds are not diverted to other uses.

ОСВОЄННЯ ПІДЗЕМНОГО ПРОСТОРУ ЯК ВИРІШЕННЯ ПРОБЛЕМ УРБАНІЗАЦІЇ МІСТ

The article examines the study of the development of modernization and transformation of the urban environment. Some issues of underground space development in urban conditions are considered, the stages of evolution of underground urban planning are singled out and characterized. Examples of development and rational use of underground space are given and analyzed. The underground space is considered as a valuable renewable georesource of the metropolis, which can actively contribute to the sustainable development of the city. This should take into account a number of factors that affect the ecology of the underground environment, the state of the hydrogeological environment and existing buildings and structures. Overconcentration of population, infrastructure and industrial production leads to overload of the geoecological and hydrogeological environment. In domestic and foreign practice there is a tendency to combine trade and household enterprises, entertainment, cultural, educational, administrative and sports institutions, transport facilities in large complexes with an underground part. The main meaning of the development of underground space - saving surface area within the city. This method of reconstruction of urban spaces is used mainly in the areas of the most intensive traffic flows and intersections, in the areas of industrial nodes and areas of utility and warehousing.

The Effect of Bicycles on Household Poverty, Per Consumption, Enterprises and Education in Malawi: Correlational Analysis

The Effect of Bicycles on Household Poverty, Per Consumption, Enterprises and Education in Malawi: Correlational Analysis

Electrification to Grow Manufacturing? Evidence from Nepal

Almost half of firms in South Asia identify electricity as a major constraint to operations. We investigate whether electrification in Nepal – via microhydro mini-grids – helped grow the manufacturing sector. Electrification led to a substantial and statistically significant increase in formal manufacturing establishments; yet the overall presence remains limited due to low baseline numbers. Labor shifts from self-employment and agriculture to employment for salary and wages. Increases in informal, nonagricultural household enterprises also contribute to labor changes. In more remote locations – farther from the historical electrical grid – the impacts of microhydro on manufacturing establishments are significantly muted.

Household response to an extreme shock: Evidence on the immediate impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on economic outcomes and well-being in rural Uganda.

We provide evidence on the economic and well-being impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on a sample of households in rural Uganda. Our sample consists of 1,277 households randomly drawn from 114 rural villages in western Uganda and surveyed in-person in early March 2020, just before the lockdown. We followed up with this sample in May 2020, reaching over 85% of them by phone. We find a large decline of 60% in household non-farm income due to household enterprise profits and labour income being almost wiped-out post the lockdown. Households respond to this loss of income in three key ways. One, there is a 40% decrease in food expenditure per adult equivalent. Two, they use up nearly 50% of their savings and borrow more, but have not yet liquidated their fixed assets or sold livestock. Three, they increase total household labour supply to household farm and livestock, more than making up for the decline in supply to enterprises and labour outside the household. We find a decrease in well-being as a result of this: there is an increase in the likelihood of missing a meal, a decline in reported satisfaction with quality of life, a higher likelihood of having a major argument with their spouse and an increase in perceived frequency of intimate partner violence against women in the village. The negative effects of the lockdown are greater for households that were wealthier at baseline, since these households were more reliant on enterprise and salaried income. These results were one of the first to show a large negative impact of the lockdown for a rural population. Our findings are important to policy makers in Uganda and other developing countries as they suggest income and consumption support is needed for rural households.

The relationship between religion and livelihood activities of women: Empirical evidence from the Yilo and Lower Manya Krobo Districts of Eastern Ghana

The study examines the effect of religious affiliation on livelihood activity choice amongst a sample of 1209 women in the Yilo and Lower Manya Krobo Districts of Ghana. We attempt to disentangle the effect religion would have through its effect on risk preferences, from the effect it would have due to creation of social capital or the effect of clustering due to social identity. We find evidence that there is a strong positive social capital or social identity effect of being Catholic, Pentecostal or Protestant when it comes to farming. This effect is also positive for Protestant and Catholic women for wage employment. This social capital and social identity effect is significantly negative for Catholic, Pentecostal and Protestant women in the case of petty retailing. Women who are willing to take risk are more likely to be in farming and less likely to be wage employed than risk averse women. However, the effect of risk aversion as a result of being Catholic, Protestant or Pentecostal only seems to have a negative effect in the case of farming. The risk aversion effect does not appear to act through religious affiliation when it comes to wage employment. It is recommended that any policy intervention aimed at enhancing livelihood activities of women in this area should take into consideration any relative advantage of having a specific religious affiliation. Such policies should take cognizance of both clustering and networking effects resulting from belonging to a religious group. Risk profiles of women are also important when implementing such policies. Other important considerations are age, household headship, education, dependency ratio, household farm ownership and household enterprise ownership.

The Household Enterprise Sector in Ghana: Overview and Challenges

Household Enterprises (HEs) have not received much consideration in the enterprise literature even though they are crucial for the development of an economy. These enterprises have been the main source of livelihood for most families in the informal sector and their contribution to reduction in unemployment is pivotal to growth of developing economies. This paper explores the nature of HE sector in Ghana and the challenges they face in their daily operations. The study employed an informal enterprise survey of 729 household enterprises conducted in 2013 by the World Bank in Ghana. With the use of systematic review and descriptive analysis, the study outlined financial constraint as the main challenge faced by HEs and discussed the linkage between HEs and the financial sector in Ghana. Based on these findings recommendations were made to the major stakeholders in the sector (entrepreneurs, financial institutions and government).

The Role of Internet Utilization Among SMEs on Household Welfare in Indonesia

The Internet has a significant influence on poverty alleviation and economic growth. Internet involvement in small-medium enterprises (SMEs) has the opportunity to create a better level of welfare. Using data from the fifth wave of the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), this study aims to analyze the impact of internet utilization on household welfare among two groups, household enterprises with internet use for business and without internet use for business. The results of the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method mention that household enterprises with internet for business purposes have higher household per capita expenditure, food consumption, and non-food expenditure than household enterprises without internet use. Another interesting result finds that household enterprises are likely to use the internet only if household heads at a young age and business establish less than one year.

Violation factors of the building coverage ratio: A study in Trimulyo Genuk, Semarang, Indonesia

Excessive Building Coverage Ratio (BCR) defined as shutting of land that is supposed to be exposed, may have a significant impact on water infiltration, eventually leading to a higher risk of both drought and flooding. The objective of this research is to find the causative factors of violated BCR in a highly flood-prone area. Using a cross-tabulation method, the cause of the violation of the BCR divided by external and internal factors. External factors, such as the absence of sanctions, large area of land owned and less understanding on what BCR is, had a negative correlation with violations. On the other hand, internal factors, such as income, household enterprises, and household size, had a positive correlation with BCR violations. The conclusion of this study that there have been insufficient propagation to the public about the BCR, resulting in most people being indifferent to, or unaware of, the disadvantages and dangers arising from the violation thereof.

Booms, Busts, and Household Enterprise: Evidence from Coffee Farmers in Tanzania

Abstract Smallholder agricultural commodity suppliers in developing countries are often vulnerable to global commodity price fluctuations. Using panel data on farmers from an area of Tanzania where most farmers grow coffee, this study finds that global coffee prices matter for household outcomes, through their effects on farmgate prices, coffee sales and revenues, and household expenditures. The article documents that households cope with coffee price busts by increasing enterprise ownership, an effect that is greater for households without access to other means of coping. Comparisons of mean outcomes of enterprises operated by coper households (which operated an enterprise only in periods of low coffee price) with those of stayer households (which operated an enterprise throughout the sample period) indicate that the former are less likely to be profitable or to hire workers.

Cash Transfers, Microentrepreneurial Activity, and Child Work: Evidence from Malawi and Zambia.

Cash transfer programs are rapidly becoming a key component of the social safety net of many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The primary aim of these programs is to help households improve their food security and smooth consumption during periods of economic duress. However, beneficiary households have also been shown to use these programs to expand their microentrepreneurial activities. Cluster-randomized trials carried out during the rollout of large-scale programs in Malawi and Zambia reveal that children may increase their work in the household enterprise through such programs. Both programs increased forms of work that may be detrimental to children, such as activities that expose children to hazards in Malawi and excessive working hours in Zambia. However, both programs also induced positive changes in other child well-being domains, such as school attendance and material well-being, leading to a mixed and inconclusive picture of the implications of these programs for children.

Managing Internal Resource for Sustainability: A Case of Indian Family Business

Family Business plays an important role in any economy to enhance employment in low income strata of population. They are included in house hold enterprises where the resources of business and owner is inseparable. A few family baseness had grown from informal level to formal due to consistent growth while a few had extinct. The extinction and survival of small family business ignite a curiosity to identify reasons for it. The inseparability in resources between business and owner limit the growth trajectory and scope for availing finance from formal system. This compels the small family business to depend on own resources or to rise fund on personal risk.The population in this research is grocery traders as it is one of the prominent in family business as it can be started as a part of residence, all family members can contribute, need of less expertise and lower investment. This paper analyse how small family business manage resources in time when they are in need. The research is conducted in Coimbatore District in Tamilnadu and the sample size is 392. It is a longitudinal survey as the data is collected over a period of one year. The shops were classified on two parameters, floor area and daily sales and measures for comparison are Net Trading Cycle, Gross Margin Return on Investment ( GMROI) and Net Profit Ratio (NPR). Family business use Resource Bootstrapping and Bricolage (RBB) strategies to overcome resource scarcity or to reduce the cash outflow which include the use of own fund, premises, vehicles and family members. The Paper explain how the RBB strategies add to the value addition through reducing operating expenses.

Dualism and Structural Transformation: The Informal Manufacturing Sector in India

We identify a basic dualism within the informal manufacturing sector (IMS) in India between a ‘traditional’/non-capitalist segment, comprising family-based household enterprises that constitute the vast majority of the IMS, and a segment of ‘modern’/capitalist enterprises employing wage labour. We focus on the high-growth decade of 2000–2001 to 2010–2011 to analyse whether there has been a marked tendency of this ‘traditional’ segment to transform into a ‘modern’ segment. We construct a variable, the net accumulation fund, which indicates the ability of an enterprise to accumulate and grow, and explore its evolution, over time and across industries, for enterprises with different production structures and firm-level characteristics. We show that while, on one hand, the average ‘traditional’ enterprise has been able to economically reproduce itself rather than withering away, the dualism between the ‘traditional’/non-capitalist and the ‘modern’/capitalist segments has been reproduced and further reinforced during this period of high economic growth, raising questions about the process of economic transformation as envisaged in much of development literature.

Poor Households’ Productive Investments of Cash Transfers: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Niger

Cash transfer programs have spread rapidly as an instrument to raise household consumption and reduce poverty. Questions remain about the sustainability of cash transfer impacts in low-income settings such as Sub-Saharan Africa and, in particular, on whether cash transfers can foster productive investments in addition to raising immediate consumption among the very poor. This paper presents evidence that a cash transfer project in rural Niger induced investments in assets and productive activities that were sustained among the very poor 18 months after project completion. Results show lasting increases in livestock assets and participation in saving groups (tontines). Cash transfers also contributed to improved agricultural productivity, but no effects in terms of diversification of other household enterprises are found. Productive asset gains are, notably, largest among the poorest of the poor, suggesting that small regular cash transfers combined with enhanced saving mechanisms can relax constraints to asset accumulation among the extreme poor.

Empirical Research on Retirement Expectations in China

Using survey data sampled from 30 provinces and cities in China in 2015, this paper probes the factors influencing retirement expectations across genders. Empirical results indicate that age, level of education, health, number of dependents, number of independent sources of household income, enterprise characteristics, and working conditions significantly affect expectations for both men and women. Additionally, leisure consumption and the expected retirement age greatly impacts an individual’s actual retirement age. This research contributes to the understanding of people’s retirement expectations to inform future reforms of Chinese retirement age policies.

Political inclusion and educational investment: Estimates from a national policy experiment in India

I examine whether the “role model effect” of female politicians on adolescent girls' school enrollment comes only from female representation in the lowest level of local government. To do this, I exploit variation in the implementation of seat quotas for women applied to a three-tiered local governance structure in India. Enrollment effects were substantially larger than those previously estimated for exposure to female leaders in the lowest tier of local government. The policy response is larger among girls in poorer households and those with less-educated women in the household, and was commensurate with reductions in idle time and employment in household enterprises. There is no evidence of additional school infrastructure, nor a reallocation of schooling resources. Effect magnitudes imply that more than two thirds of the net effect of the policy comes from female politicians serving in reserved positions other than the village council chairperson seat.

Political Inclusion and Educational Investment: Estimates from a National Policy Experiment in India

In this paper, I examine whether the role model of female politicians on adolescent girls' school enrollment comes only from female representation in the lowest level of local government. To do this, I exploit variation in the implementation of seat quotas for women applied to a three-tiered local governance structure in India. Enrollment effects were substantially larger than those previously estimated for exposure to female leaders in the lowest tier of local government. The policy response is larger among girls in poorer households and those with less-educated women in the household, and was commensurate with reductions in idle time and employment in household enterprises. There is no evidence of additional school infrastructure, nor a reallocation of schooling resources. Effect magnitudes imply that more than two thirds of the net effect of the policy comes from female politicians serving in reserved positions other than the village council chairperson seat.