Standard economic theory assumes that individuals’ preferences are independent of their social environment. However, this basic assumption seems partly unrealistic because individual utility can be affected by a variety of social interactions. This paper assesses the role of peer effects on the informality of Micro and Small firms. We use the instrumental variable approach with fixed effects on survey data in the informal sector in Cameroon. Our results show a positive impact of informal behavior of peers of the firm on its level of informality. Thus, we find a social multiplier of 9.43 and 4.65 according to the nature of the reference group. These results show that, in reality, a policy leading one firm to formalize will lead at least nine (or four depending on the reference group) others to do so due to peer effects.

标准经济理论假设个人的偏好独立于他们的社会环境。然而，这个基本假设似乎部分不现实，因为个人效用会受到各种社会互动的影响。本文评估了同行效应对微型和小型企业非正式性的作用。我们使用对喀麦隆非正规部门的调查数据具有固定影响的工具变量方法。我们的结果表明，公司同行的非正式行为对其非正式程度有积极影响。因此，根据参考群体的性质，我们找到了 9.43 和 4.65 的社会乘数。这些结果表明，实际上，由于同行效应，导致一家公司正式化的政策将导致至少九家（或四家，取决于参考群体）其他公司这样做。