The Role of Regulation on Entry : Evidence from the Italian Provinces

Bripi, Francesco

Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank

关键词: ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES;    REGULATION;    BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT;    FIRM ENTRY;   

DOI  :  10.1093/wber/lhv063

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper studies the effects of differences in local administrative burdens in Italy in the years 2005–2007 preceding a major reform that sped up firm registration procedures. Combining regulatory data from a survey on Italian provinces before the reform (costs and time to start a business) with industry-level entry rates of limited liability firms, I explore the effects of regulatory barriers on the average of the annual entry rates across industries with different natural propensities to enter the market. The estimates of the cross-sectional analysis show that lengthier and, to some extent, more costly procedures reduced entry in sectors with naturally high entry. A one-day delay in registration procedures reduces the entry rate in highly dynamic sectors by more than 1 percent. These results hold when I include measures of local financial development and of efficiency of bankruptcy procedures.