{"type":"script","doc_desc":{"producers":[{"name":"Reproducibility WBG","abbr":"DECDI","affiliation":"World Bank - Development Impact Department","role":"Verification and preparation of metadata"}],"prod_date":"2025-12-02","version":"1"},"project_desc":{"authoring_entity":[{"name":"Mohammad Amin","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"mamin@worldbank.org"},{"name":"Asif M. islam","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"aislam@worldbank.org"},{"name":"Debasmita Padhi","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"dpadhi@worldbank.org"}],"title_statement":{"title":"Reproducibility package for Do Informal Businesses With More Educated Owners Adopt Better Business Practices? Evidence From Central African Republic","idno":"RR_CAF_2025_487"},"data_statement":"Some data is limited-access and has not been included in the reproducibility package. For more details, please refer to the README file.","software":[{"name":"R","version":"4.5.1"},{"name":"Stata","version":"19.5 MP"}],"scripts":[{"title":"Reproducibility package for Do Informal Businesses With More Educated Owners Adopt Better Business Practices? Evidence From Central African Republic","date":"2025-12","notes":"Computational reproducibility verified by Development Impact (DECDI) Analytics team, World Bank.","instructions":"See README in reproducibility package.","file_name":"RR_CAF_2025_487","zip_package":"RR_CAF_2025_487.zip","dependencies":"R dependencies are listed in the file renv.lock. Stata dependencies are listed in the ado folder."}],"repository_uri":[{"name":"Reproducible Research Repository (World Bank)","uri":"https:\/\/reproducibility.worldbank.org"}],"production_date":"2025-12-02","abstract":"The business practices of unregistered or informal enterprises can significantly affect their performance and the overall productivity of the sector. However, very little is known about the prevalence of business practices and the sorts of factors that influence their adoption among informal enterprises. This is especially the case in the context of fragile economies.   The present paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the adoption of business practices among informal enterprises in Central African Republic, which serves as a unique context \u2013 high informality, low education attainment, and recurrent shocks including conflict and the AIDS epidemic. While several factors correlated with the decision to adopt business practices are uncovered, the focus is on the education level of the business owner or manager. A conservative estimate suggests that relative to no education or up to primary education, secondary or higher education increases the likelihood of adopting one or more of the nine business practices considered by about 10 percentage points. The number of business practices adopted increases by 0.66 (against a mean value of 1.7). We show that the positive impact of education is most likely causal using entropy balancing, inverse probability weighting, the Oster test for selection on observables, and the impact of the AIDS epidemic in the latter half of the 1990s on school enrollment as an instrument for the education level of current business owners. We also find significant heterogeneities in the relationship between education and business practices. Belonging to a business association and a business owner\u2019s past experience in the industry may compensate for a lack of formal education, while the use of electricity, manufacturing vs. services activity, and location in Bangui city vs. Berberati complement and magnify the positive effect of education. Several avenues for future research emerge from our analysis which are discussed.","geographic_units":[{"name":"Central African Republic","code":"CAF"}],"keywords":[{"name":"Business Practices"},{"name":"Informal Sector"},{"name":"Education"},{"name":"Central African Republic"}],"topics":[{"id":"L23","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Organization of Production","parent_id":"L2"},{"id":" D22","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis","parent_id":"D2"},{"id":" L26","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Entrepreneurship","parent_id":"L2"},{"id":" O55","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Africa","parent_id":"O5"}],"output":[{"type":"Working Paper","description":"Policy Research Working Papers (PRWP)","title":"Do Informal Businesses With More Educated Owners Adopt Better Business Practices? Evidence From Central African Republic"}],"language":[{"name":"English","code":"EN"}],"disclaimer":"The materials in the reproducibility packages are distributed as they were prepared by the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development\/The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this event do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, the Executive Directors of the World Bank, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the materials included in the reproducibility package.","license":[{"name":"Modified BSD3","uri":"https:\/\/opensource.org\/license\/bsd-3-clause\/"}],"contacts":[{"name":"Mohammad Amin","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"mamin@worldbank.org"},{"name":"Reproducibility WBG","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"reproducibility@worldbank.org"}],"datasets":[{"name":"World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES)","uri":"https:\/\/www.enterprisesurveys.org\/en\/enterprisesurveys","access_type":"Data access requires approval and is not included in the reproducibility package. It can be accessed following the instructions in the README.","license_uri":"https:\/\/login.enterprisesurveys.org\/content\/sites\/financeandprivatesector\/en\/terms.html","citation":"World Bank.\n2023.\nWorld Bank Enterprise Surveys: Central African Republic \u2013 Informal Enterprise Survey (ISES) 2023 [dataset].\nAvailable at: https:\/\/www.enterprisesurveys.org\/en\/enterprisesurveys\nAccessed on June, 2024.","note":"Source: World Bank. \nData file:  \"data and outputs\/Central-African-Republic-2023-ISES-full-data.dta\". \nData was accessed in June, 2024."},{"name":"World Development Indicators","note":"Source: World Bank.\nFile location: \"data and outputs\/Figure5.xlsx\".\nIndicator used: Prevalence of HIV, total (% of population ages 15-49) (SH.DYN.AIDS.ZS).\nData was accessed in June, 2024.","access_type":"Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.","license":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0)","license_uri":"https:\/\/www.worldbank.org\/en\/about\/legal\/terms-of-use-for-datasets","uri":"https:\/\/data.worldbank.org\/indicator\/","citation":"World Bank.\nn.d.\nWorld Development Indicators: Prevalence of HIV, total (% of population ages 15-49) (SH.DYN.AIDS.ZS) [dataset].\nAvailable at: https:\/\/data.worldbank.org\/indicator\/.\nAccessed in June, 2024."}],"reproduction_instructions":"To reproduce the findings a new user needs to:\n1. Download the dataset following the instructions provided in the README file.\n2. Change the path in the do file `P99_CAF-Edu-MgmtPractice_11-4-2025.do` and run the code.\n3. Change the path in the R script `R-for-Fig10-Balance-plot_7-31-2025.R` and run the code.","technology_environment":"Paper exhibits were reproduced on a computer with the following specifications:\nOS: Windows 11 Enterprise\nProcessor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6226R CPU @ 2.90GHz \nMemory available: 16.0 GB","technology_requirements":"Runtime: 6 minutes approximately"},"tags":[{"tag":"DOI"},{"tag":"Open Code"},{"tag":"Restricted Data"}],"schematype":"script"}