In Africa, social capital (SC) is an important resource for the informal economy. It substitutes the limited formal business support systems as factor inputs for enterprise development. This article investigates the effect of Burt’s structural holes theory of social capital in the context of the Ethiopian informal economy. Data were collected from street entrepreneurs in Addis Ababa using multiple name generators constructed on the basis of entrepreneurs’ frequent interaction with people related to resources needed for entrepreneurial activities. Social network analyses and statistical procedures of instrumental variables estimation were used to analyse the data. By controlling the potential endogeneity problem between structural holes and enterprise outcomes, the findings of the study show that entrepreneurs’ dense network structure, which lacks structural holes, has a significant negative effect on entrepreneurial outcome. Accordingly, policies that aim at supporting informal entrepreneurs need to consider the benefits of social contacts while taking into account the downside of being excessively embedded in dense networks.

中文翻译：

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社会资本和创业成果：来自埃塞俄比亚非正式部门企业家的证据

在非洲，社会资本（SC）是非正规经济的重要资源。它替代了有限的正式业务支持系统，作为企业发展的要素输入。本文探讨了伯特的社会资本结构漏洞理论在埃塞俄比亚非正规经济背景下的影响。使用多个名称生成器从亚的斯亚贝巴的街头企业家收集数据，这些名称生成器是基于企业家与企业家活动所需资源相关人员的频繁互动而构建的。使用社会网络分析和工具变量估计的统计程序来分析数据。通过控制结构漏洞和企业成果之间的潜在内生性问题，研究结果表明，企业家的密集网络结构，缺乏结构性漏洞，对创业成果产生重大负面影响。因此，旨在支持非正式企业家的政策需要考虑社会交往的好处，同时要考虑到过度嵌入密集网络的弊端。