Rethinking Indonesia’s Informal Sector

•We use new data to determine why Indonesia’s informal sector is so persistent.•Most informal firms are very small, relatively unproductive, and serve local markets.•Many informal firms in Indonesia do not want to expand or pay taxes.•A major program to reduce registration costs had no effects on informality.•The rational exit and dual economy theories best explain informality in Indonesia. This paper reviews competing theories about the causes of informality in developing countries and uses new data to determine which theory best explains the persistence and scale of Indonesia’s informal sector. Using nationally representative survey data on micro, small, and medium-sized firms, we find that most of Indonesia’s informal firms are very small, micro firms, with less than five employees. These firms pay low wages, are relatively unproductive when compared to large firms, are managed by individuals with low educational attainment, predominantly supply products to local markets, and have not recently attempted to expand their operations. From a small-scale, qualitative survey of firms, we find that many informal firms do not register their businesses either because they have no desire to expand or borrow from formal financial sources, or because they are avoiding taxes. Finally, we evaluate the impact of Indonesia’s one-stop-shops for business registration program, a large-scale program that attempted to reduce registration costs. We find both that the program had no effects on firms’ informality rates, and we also find that it did not reduce the probability that workers were informally employed. Taken together, the evidence suggests that a combination of the rational exit and the dual economy theories best explains why so many firms in Indonesia are informal.