Abstract
This survey field data was collected, from rural governorates in Egypt, on Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) in the context of a project, funded by ERF, on "The Nexus between Informal Credit and Informal Labor for MSEs in Egypt".
MSEs in Egypt still rely heavily on informal credit. They also rely on informal labor to a great extent. In the meantime, MSEs' access to formal finance has been facing increasing restrictions, due to adopting more cautious lending strategies by both public and private banks.
This project aims, through the collected dataset, at examining the relationship between informal credit and the formalization of MSEs, in general, and, in particular, their employment characteristics. To do that, it attempts to find out what effect informal credit has on the performance, risk and return to capital of MSEs and how it affects the employment profile and the use of informal labor. It also looks into whether informal credit provides a disincentive for the formalization of MSEs and whether the sources of informal credit have different effects on the formalization of MSEs.or to a great extent.
The survey was tested in several governorates, but was eventually implemented in the Gharbeya and Bani Suef governorates. Administering the survey was often interrupted because of security reasons.
It is also worth noting that this survey is not weighted.