FAST-FOOD IN DEVELOPMENT

Concepts that presume market activities in poor and rich countries to be different from each other, such as informal, are helpful in certain types of discussion. They nevertheless cloud reality in empirical wor k. More useful for this work may be the hypothesis that poor and rich are alike. To make the case the paper presents data from Haiti and the United States showing that demand for prepared meals derives from ide ntical factors, that differences in firm size and other characteristic s result from income differences between the countries, and that effic iency, productivity, and other key features are the same.