Why do so many businesses choose to remain informal? Vijaya Ramachandran and co-authors discover that the answer is more nuanced than often believed. In East Africa, for instance, the difference in productivity between formal and informal firms is often indistinguishable, while in Southern Africa pr...

What's keeping private business from flourishing in Africa? On the basis of unique enterprise surveys, Vijaya Ramachandran and her co-authors identify poor roads and unreliable power as major physical challenges; ethnic segmentation and the economic predominance ethnic minorities further constrain t...

This CGD Brief, based on the book Africa's Private Sector by Vijaya Ramachandran, Alan Gelb, and Manju Kedia Shah, shows how investing in infrastructure and improving access to education can help bring about a broad-based business class in Africa.