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While the shadow economy seems to have both positive and negative effects on a country's macroeconomy, almost all governments have attempted to control the shadow economy to prevent the loss of tax revenues and the attendant impact on the government budget. Even though official development assistance (ODA) has no formal link with the shadow economy, we often observe a relationship between the two in recipient countries. We argue that ODA can increase the size of the shadow economy in recipient countries through both government and individual-level flows of ODA to the shadow economy. We analyzed data on the shadow economies of 107 ODA recipients from 1990 to 2018 using both fixed effect and Driscoll–Kraay estimators. The results show that recipients receiving a higher volume of ODA are more likely to have a larger shadow economy. Moreover, the relationship between ODA and the shadow economy is stronger in more corrupt recipients. We dealt with endogeneity issues using the generalized method of moments, which supported our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource misallocation has the potential to reduce aggregate total factor productivity and undermine industrial development. Aggregate productivity losses are found to be particularly pronounced in emerging economies where large market frictions impede efficient resource allocation. Available estimates, however, almost entirely exclude firms in the informal sector that in some countries, such as Zimbabwe, make up a high share of overall production and employment. The exclusion of informal firms can result in either an over- or under-estimate of the aggregate productivity losses from misallocation. This paper, therefore, uses firm-level survey data to analyze how market distortions contribute to the misallocation of resources within and between the formal and informal manufacturing sectors in Zimbabwe. Applying the approach developed by Hsieh and Klenow (2009) to firm-level microdata, the results reveal extensive resource misallocation in both the formal and informal manufacturing sector. Market shares of informal firms are found to be low relative to their productivity—an outcome associated with relatively large capital market distortions. Misallocation is also more pronounced among relatively productive firms, thus exacerbating aggregate losses in total factor productivity (TFP). Estimates indicate that aggregated gains in TFP of 151.4 percent can be realized through efficient resource allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) exposed weaknesses in the health systems of countries such as Nigeria, which affected the effectiveness of the health system response to the pandemic. This paper provides new knowledge on the level of the availability, effectiveness and equity of resources in response to COVID-19 in Nigeria. This is valuable information for improving the delivery of countermeasures against future pandemics. Methods The study was conducted at the federal level and in two states in Nigeria. The states were Lagos in the southwest and Enugu in the southeast. In-depth interviews were undertaken with 34 key informants. NVivo version 12 software was used for coding and thematic analysis. Results There were inadequate, inequitable and suboptimal resources (human, financial, equipment and materials) for the response. In some of the countermeasures, only people that were employed in the formal sector benefitted from the distribution of welfare materials and financial packages; the informal sector, which constitutes the majority of the poor population in Nigeria, was excluded. Conclusions Inequity and suboptimal availability of resources to control COVID-19 led to reduced effectiveness of the health system response to the disease in Nigeria. Such negative factors must be mitigated in future responses to pandemics in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the institutional economics perspective, we study how local firms in an emerging economy exploit institutional voids by sourcing inputs from industries with a large informal economy. We argue that this allows them to build a cost-related competitive advantage and leverage it both to export and to enhance export performance. The empirical study uses a unique dataset compiled by the Mexican authorities covering manufacturing plants between 2005 and 2012. Our results indicate that firms operating in industries that procure from industries with an extensive informal economy are more likely to export and to have better export performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safety net programs, common in settings with high informality like Latin America, often use a means test to establish eligibility. We ask: in settings in which organised crime provides lucrative opportunities in the informal market, will discouraging formal employment via benefits eligibility criteria increase criminal enterprise activity? We link administrative socioeconomic microdata with the universe of arrests in Medellín over a decade, and exploit exogenous variation in formal-sector employment around a socioeconomic-score cutoff, below which individuals receive generous benefits if not formally employed. Regression discontinuity estimates confirm this policy reduced formal-sector employment and generated a corresponding increase in arrests associated with organised crime. We do not find increases for crimes unlikely to be associated with organised entities, such as crimes of impulse or opportunity. Effects on arrests are strongest in neighbourhoods where organised crime is most prevalent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent Chinese involvement in small-scale gold mining in Ghana has received wide publicity and scholarly attention. While the literature has focused on environmental sustainability, political accountability, and institutional reforms, it is yet to examine local adoption of Chinese technology and its impact on Ghana's rural economy. We argue that it is in the interstices between the formal economy and entrepreneurship within the informal economy that opportunities for Chinese interventions emerge. Using evidence from Manso Akropong in the Ashanti region and Bole in the Savannah region, this article shows that, while Chinese technology's impact is transformative, the outcomes are divergent in different regions. In Manso Akropong, the intensification of mining backed by Ghanaian–Chinese collaborations has led to the environmental destruction, creating competition between gold mining and cocoa farming that had underpinned Ghana's rural prosperity. In Bole, where less aggressive Chinese technology such as Changfa and rubber mats are incorporated without direct Chinese participation, a more sustainable pattern of growth has emerged. This comparative study suggests that besides the large-scale projects and state-led training programmes, grassroots actors like informal artisanal miners are at the forefront of technology transfer in the China–Africa encounter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting the use of assistive technology (AT) is crucial for the health and well-being of users, but there is a huge global problem of unmet need for AT. In this context informal (unregulated) providers of AT play a significant role of meeting AT user need, particularly in less-resourced settings. This study draws on research into formal and informal AT provision in low-income urban communities in Indonesia and Sierra Leone to explore the potential of informal providers in addressing unmet need. Specifically, it looks at the different performance of formal and informal providers regarding the availability and the adequacy of AT that they provide. The study concludes by proposing further research into the scope for coproduction of AT between formal and informal providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing significance of non-compliant employment practice in the British economy has motivated scrutiny of the effectiveness of current regulation. In some markets, charges of labour exploitation, underpayment of the national minimum wage and associated 'wage theft' from workers are rife where business operations are characterised by academics, regulators and stakeholders as exuding 'permissive visibility'. The current landscape of enforcement and regulation of informal business and employment practices features complex structural and operational issues for regulators subject to tight resource constraints. These enable permissiveness and offer scope for strategic regulatory tolerance of some violation types, possibly to raise compliance rates for other types of violations. Drawing on extensive empirical evidence and qualitative data sources in one market sector (hand car washes), this study investigates some key hypotheses focussing on compliance and responses by businesses and regulators to the extant regulatory regime. These inform a pragmatic institutional analysis considering the merits of some movement towards a single enforcement body instead of the existing arrangements featuring multiple regulatory institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deputy President William Ruto's victorious presidential campaign in Kenya's 2022 elections saw him champion the plight of the 'hustlers', young informal economy workers on low, piecemeal incomes. Reconfiguring political identities around notions of economic hardship and struggle, Ruto's campaign appeared emblematic of what scholars have recently identified as a turn towards 'populism' in Africa, transmuting ethno-nationalist identities into class-based ones. However, whilst Ruto's campaign capitalized on rising prices to devastating political effect, he also channelled discontent with the Jubilee government and its unmet promises of shared prosperity. Drawing on ethnographic data collected in central Kenya's Kiambu region since 2017, this article understands Ruto's victory not through the lens of 'hustler populism' but rather as an anti-Jubilee 'backlash'. Ruto's campaign took advantage of Uhuru Kenyatta's personal unpopularity as voters increasingly questioned the nature of 'dynastic' authority and 'state capture', seeking to punish Uhuru personally for his failures to create prosperity in the region whilst enriching himself at their expense. Elaborating on these tensions, the article points towards broken 'moral economies' between voters and politicians as a vital field of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can people who work in the informal sector protect property rights and address uncertainties? Street vending forms an essential part of urban economies in developing countries like China, and most street vendors operate outside state regulation. They encounter market-based uncertainties and uncertainties caused by unpredictable enforcement. Empirical data collected in Guangzhou and Guilin suggests that street vendors form private governance organizations to solve resource limitations, allocate pitches and resist government interference. Street vendors who cannot rely on effective private governance organizations may purchase protection from a third party (e.g. agents of the state) to secure informal rights to a particular spot and avoid confiscation of their wares and equipment. This study contributes to existing literature on private governance and informality by empirically examining private governance institutions in an informal economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal work is a significant feature of labour markets in many developed countries, despite having unemployment protection (UP) programmes. We use a model of job search over the duration of unemployment to study how the structure of these programmes influences the incentive of the unemployed to engage in informal work while searching for formal jobs. Accounting for informality enables the model to jointly explain three known features on job search dynamics: a temporary re-employment spike, low search effort, and negative duration dependence. The quantitative analysis finds that both informality and unemployment can be reduced by redistributing (across either workers or programmes), rather than increasing, the overall UP budget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the labour market effects and redistributive consequences among natives of the arrival of the Syrian refugees in Turkey. For that, we use the quantitative spatial model developed in Loayza et al. (2021) , in which low- and high-skill workers can choose where to live/work and firms within each region can choose to operate in the formal or informal sectors and, if formal, whether to hire their workers formally or not. We use the estimated model to quantify the effects of the 'refugee shock' on informality, wages, profits, and tax revenues across regions and the country as a whole. We show that informality increases among low-skill but decreases among high-skill workers and the skill premium increases. Wages of low-skill workers decline substantially in the most affected regions, but tax revenues and profits per worker increase. Redistributing tax revenues can substantially reduce low-skill workers' losses in most affected areas. In addition, redistributing profits can completely revert both low- and high-skill workers' losses, even in the most affected regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of globalization, the informal sector enterprises are also exposed to international competition; and therefore, they need to remain productive and competitive. In this regard, innovation is an obvious strategic choice at the firm level. Drawing from the data gathered through an extensive field survey in NCT-Delhi, India, this study observes that innovation activities in the informal enterprises take place mostly through non-research-and-development routes and rely more on interactive learning and learning by doing. The econometric analysis shows that formal interactions through subcontracting and membership in the industrial associations along with informal interactions with other firms, buyer–supplier interactions, and social capital are having positive and significant influence on product, process, and marketing innovation. However, this study reveals that formal interactions play a vital role in introducing marketing innovations. Further, the results show the essential role of in-house training, entrepreneurial expertise, and information communication technology usage at the firm level. Thus, the paper provides empirical evidence reiterating the importance of integrating informal manufacturing enterprises and their learning processes as the key components of the innovation system in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across global cities of the world, urban spaces of arrival tend to be characterized by a multiplicity of informal practices, and therefore also marginality, being most prevalent in relation to local economic practices, and increasingly more the legal status of foreigner migrants residing in such spaces. This article aims to understand these dynamics in arrival spaces at the margins by exploring both domains in a unique manner. Over recent decades, urban and migration studies have separately given rise to new research that is critical of the pervasive binary views around formal versus informal economies and legal versus illegal migrations. Drawing on this literature, and ethnographic fieldwork carried out in an Istanbul locality that has served as a zone of arrival for varying migration flows over several decades, this article examines how both business proprietors and migrants working and/or residing in the locality actively and continuously re-negotiate their positions within spectrums of in/formality and il/legality. It shows that arrival spaces at the margins are places of intense calculation and that the chosen direction along these spectrums depends on an evaluation of all kinds of social, political, spatial, and temporal factors transpiring at a particular moment and place. In focusing on this processual nature of in/formalities and il/legalities, the article also suggests reconsidering various other dualities, including margins versus center, exclusion versus inclusion, and arrival versus settlement, and argues that the intensity of having to manage one's experiences of these dualities is what really distinguishes inhabiting arrival spaces at the margins in today's global cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effect of an increase in import competition on informality along two margins. It considers the extensive margin , where workers are hired by unregistered employers, and the intensive margin , where even though jobs are carried out by registered firms, employees are off the books. Peru's relentless informal employment and its unprecedented trade-driven growth provides an ideal case study. Using a rich household survey, this study finds that exposure to trade impacts on informality through two competing and contrasting mechanisms. On the one hand, extensive-informal employment declines as unregistered employers shrink or exit due to their low productivity. On the other hand, intensive-informal employment rises as registered employers reduce costs by hiring informal workers. Furthermore, results suggest that the intensive margin drives the overall effect. Hence, trade liberalization increases informality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a search model of informal labour markets with realistic labour regulations, including minimum wage, and heterogeneous workers and firms. Smaller firms and lower wages in the informal sector emerge endogenously as firms and workers decide whether to comply with regulations. Because skilled and unskilled workers are imperfect substitutes in production, the model uniquely captures the informality consequences of shocks that affect returns to skill, such as rising educational levels. The model also reproduces empirical patterns incompatible with other frameworks: the presence of skilled and unskilled workers in the formal and informal sectors, the rising share of skilled workers by firm size, and formal and firm-size wage premiums that vary by skill level. We estimate the model using 2003 data from Brazil and show that it successfully predicts labour market changes observed between 2003 and 2012. Under a range of different assumptions, changes in workforce composition appear as the main drivers of the reduction in informality over this period. Policy simulations using the estimated model suggest that progressive payroll taxes are a cost-effective way to reduce informality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

External conditions have historically influenced economic outcomes and have also impacted political institutions in developing countries. Focusing on these changes, this article develops a theoretical model of political conflict and democratic stability in a small open developing economy, using as the basis a structuralist macroeconomic model. In this model, political institutions are given in the medium run but vary in the long run as a result of political conflict between capitalists, formal workers, and informal workers excluded from the benefits of social protection. The model suggests that a democratic breakdown is more likely the larger the informal sector, the lower the structural competitiveness of the economy, and the weaker the country's democratic tradition. The model also links the possibility of coups and democratization process with external shocks. Based mainly on the Latin American experience in democratic and dictatorial regimes, the article claims that combining industrial and technological policies—which ease the Balance-of-Payments constraint—with the building of a comprehensive system of social protection is key for the consolidation and stability of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Services that are especially suited to being offered via online labor platforms, such as cleaning, driving and tutoring, are frequently performed in an informal way, especially in emerging-market countries. The informal economy is thus important for recruiting workers for labor platforms. Platform use, however, requires formal service provision, which workers in the informal economy often resist. Thus, labor platforms have to promote workers' transition from informal to formal service provision. While recent studies have hinted at labor platforms' fostering of formal economic activity, we know little about how such intermediation unfolds. We use a process lens and comprehensive qualitative data on labor platforms in Panama and Mexico to study how labor platforms steer workers to formal service provision. Detailing the interactive process of workers transitioning to formal service provision as triggered by labor platforms, we add to platform research and literature on intermediation between informal and formal economic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ghana, as in many African countries, is faced with the challenge of sustainably managing electronic waste (e-waste). The country has a legal framework and is in the process of developing a public policy for e-waste management. However, e-waste management remains a major challenge due to weaknesses in the country's innovation and policymaking process that include inability to cater for the informal sector. This article argues that the current approach to innovation policymaking in Ghana would be inadequate in delivering the goal of sustainable e-waste management. We examine the country's evolving e-waste management regime and the multiple perspectives of actors with respect to their perceived transformative changes and show that these perspectives and expectations are critical for an e-waste policymaking process. We conclude that policy processes adopted in developing countries for e-waste management should be guided by inclusive policymaking approaches that consider perspectives from informal actors to co-create solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the Venezuelan crisis, Colombian migrants are returning to their place of birth. Since 2016, however, there has been a spike of immigration to Colombia attributable to inflows of the Venezuelan-born. Using high-frequency administrative data, we estimate the impacts of the recent labour supply shock–driven by the economic predicament in Venezuela–on the labour and poverty outcomes of native Colombians. We employ an instrumental variables approach to account for the selection of immigrants into locations with more or less desirable conditions. A 1 percentage point increase in immigration from Venezuela reduces informal sector wages by 10 percentage points in urban areas. As the crisis increased the fraction of migrants by 0.2 percentage points in 2017, we estimate urban wages decreased by a total of 2 percentage points. A dual-pronged approach is warranted to promote the economic assimilation of Venezuelans while protecting the job security of Colombians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the criminal regulation of misoprostol as a controlled drug in Brazil as a new form of abortion criminalization. A qualitative analysis of Brazilian case law shows how the courts use a public health rhetoric of unsafe abortion to criminalize the distribution of misoprostol in the informal sector. Rather than an invention of the local bench, this judicial rhetoric reflects global public health discourse and policy on unsafe abortion and the double life of misoprostol as both an essential medicine and a controlled drug. In contrast to previous studies, the article shows that abortion criminalization is not the cause, but rather the consequence of misoprostol's double life. In the last section, it draws on an outlier judgment of the case law to chart a regulatory future for misoprostol and its supply in the informal sector as a site of harm reduction and safe abortion in public health policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large and growing literature has associated gender equality with better macroeconomic outcomes. However, understanding the channels through which gender equality impacts the economy requires a deeper dive in the main constraints within an economy. Using theoretical and empirical evidence, we explore how gender equality in education feeds into higher human capital levels and thus better macroeconomic outcomes. We also analyse the impact of inequities in the labour market, focusing also on the role of the informal sector. Finally, we provide an overview on policy options to address various gender gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results from a laboratory experiment designed to study political distortions in the accumulation of public debt. A legislature bargains over the levels of a public good and of district specific transfers in two periods. The legislature can issue or purchase risk-free bonds in the first period and the level of public debt creates a dynamic linkage across policymaking periods. In line with the theoretical predictions, we find that public policies are inefficient and efficiency is increasing in the size of the majority requirement, with higher investment in public goods and lower debt associated with larger majority requirements. Debt is lower when the probability of a negative shock to the economy in the second period is higher indicating that even in a political equilibrium debt is used to smooth consumption and to insure against economic uncertainty. Also in line with the theoretical predictions, we find that dynamic distortions are eliminated when the first period proposer can commit to a policy for both periods. The experiment, however, highlights two phenomena that are surprising in terms of standard theory and have not been previously documented. First, balancing the budget in each period is a focal point, leading to lower distortions than predicted. Second, higher majority requirements induce significant delays in reaching an agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sanctions literature has identified numerous mechanisms by which the adverse economic effects of sanctions impact their success rate. This body of work, however, has mostly focused on targets' formal economies and has thus overlooked whether sanctions-induced changes in shadow (also known as informal) economic activity influence sanctions' effectiveness. In this article, we develop two rival arguments that can potentially explain how shadow sector growth affects sanctions' outcomes. Our grievance mitigation theory argues that increased shadow sector activity decreases the political pressure on leaders to capitulate to sanctions, while our disadvantaged democracy theory asserts that shadow economies create budgetary resource demands and deficits that disproportionately hamper democratic targets' ability to resist sanctions. We assess the empirical merits of the two theories using time-series cross-national data for 1950–2005. We find robust evidence that the growth of shadow economies increases the likelihood of sanctions' success in democratic targets while not significantly affecting the success rate of sanctions against non-democratic regimes. Our findings shed new light on the processes by which the economic disruptions and hardships created by sanctions translate into pressure on targeted regimes to concede to sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tanzania's rapid labor productivity growth has been accompanied by a proliferation of small, largely informal firms. Using Tanzania's first nationally representative survey of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs)—this paper explores the nature of these businesses. It finds that these firms are located in both rural and urban areas and that they operate primarily in trade services and manufacturing. Roughly half of all business owners say they would not leave their job for a full-time salaried position. Fifteen percent of these small businesses contribute significantly to economy-wide labor productivity. The most important policy implication of the evidence presented in this paper is that if the goal is to grow MSMEs with the potential to contribute to productive employment, policies must be targeted at the most promising firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze a unique episode in the history of monetary economics, the 2016 Indian "demonetization." This policy made 86% of cash in circulation illegal tender overnight, with new notes gradually introduced over the next several months. We present a model of demonetization where agents hold cash both to satisfy a cash-in-advance constraint and for tax evasion purposes. We test the predictions of the model in the cross-section of Indian districts using several novel data sets including: the geographic distribution of demonetized and new notes for causal inference; night light activity and employment surveys to measure economic activity including in the informal sector; debit/credit cards and e-wallet transactions data; and banking data on deposit and credit growth. Districts experiencing more severe demonetization had relative reductions in economic activity, faster adoption of alternative payment technologies, and lower bank credit growth. The cross-sectional responses cumulate to a contraction in aggregate employment and night lights–based output due to the the cash shortage of at least 2 percentage points and of bank credit of 2 percentage points in 2016Q4 relative to their counterfactual paths, effects that dissipate over the next few months. Our analysis rejects monetary nonneutrality using a large-scale natural experiment, something that is still rare in the vast literature on the effects of monetary policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether localized clusters of similar industries produce agglomeration economies in the formal and informal sectors. We develop a Bayesian method to estimate a spatial autoregressive model with an endogenous independent variable. We use establishment-level census data that cover both formal registered and informal unregistered establishments in Cambodia. We find that the density of local employment has a significantly positive effect on productivity in the informal sector, but little effect in the formal sector. For manufacturing, a doubling of employment density increases productivity in the informal sector by 9% through local linkages and by 19% through spatial multiplier linkages, leading to a 28% increase in total. A spatial network magnifies the local impact of agglomeration economies in the informal sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Agate workers in Khambhat, India and their community members are exposed to high levels of silica dust and related diseases. Use of effective prevention practices remains low, prompting the need for effective interventions which increase the uptake of and investment in prevention practices. We sought: (a) to describe knowledge, self‐efficacy, and practices among a population of workers, their family members, and neighbors involved in or located close to agate processing; and (b) to explore which factors are related to use of prevention practices and willingness to invest in new dust control technologies. Methods: A community survey was conducted to measure demographics, occupation and financial factors, knowledge, prevention practices, barriers, risk perceptions, and efficacy beliefs. Descriptive statistics were used and, among agate workers, hierarchical logistic regression explored predictors of prevention practice use and willingness to invest. Results: Among 1120 respondents, approximately 44%, 35%, and 8% of workers, family members, and neighbors used prevention practices, respectively. Knowledge and risk perceptions were generally high, where efficacy beliefs were low. Workers who had high levels of education, worked at home, and had high efficacy beliefs were more likely to report using prevention practices and being willing to invest. Barriers to prevention practice use included financial barriers, and beliefs that prevention is ineffective and health is not at risk. Conclusions: Interventions and future research should be designed to engage the community to improve preventive behavior, and implement affordable and effective dust control interventions in the agate industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Approximately 2 billion workers globally are employed in informal settings, which are characterized by substantial risk from hazardous exposures and varying job tasks and schedules. Existing methods for identifying occupational hazards must be adapted for unregulated and challenging work environments. We designed and applied a method for objectively deriving time-activity patterns from wearable camera data and matched images with continuous measurements of personal inhalation exposure to size-specific particulate matter (PM) among workers at an informal electronic-waste (e-waste) recovery site. Methods One hundred and forty-two workers at the Agbogbloshie e-waste site in Accra, Ghana, wore sampling backpacks equipped with wearable cameras and real-time particle monitors during a total of 171 shifts. Self-reported recall of time-activity (30-min resolution) was collected during the end of shift interviews. Images (N = 35,588) and simultaneously measured PM2.5 were collected each minute and processed to identify activities established through worker interviews, observation, and existing literature. Descriptive statistics were generated for activity types, frequencies, and associated PM2.5 exposures. A kappa statistic measured agreement between self-reported and image-based time-activity data. Results Based on image-based time-activity patterns, workers primarily dismantled, sorted/loaded, burned, and transported e-waste materials for metal recovery with high variability in activity duration. Image-based and self-reported time-activity data had poor agreement (kappa = 0.17). Most measured exposures (90%) exceeded the World Health Organization (WHO) 24-h ambient PM2.5 target of 25 µg m−3. The average on-site PM2.5 was 81 µg m−3 (SD: 94). PM2.5 levels were highest during burning, sorting/loading and dismantling (203, 89, 83 µg m−3, respectively). PM2.5 exposure during long periods of non-work-related activities also exceeded the WHO standard in 88% of measured data. Conclusions In complex, informal work environments, wearable cameras can improve occupational exposure assessments and, in conjunction with monitoring equipment, identify activities associated with high exposures to workplace hazards by providing high-resolution time-activity data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a classical typology, Polanyi distinguishes three basic modes of economic integration: competitive market exchange, redistribution and reciprocity. While markets are dominant in modern capitalism, redistribution and reciprocity are—to varying extent—also part of its institutional architecture. Asking whether such institutional differences are mirrored in distinct 'moral economies', we investigate ordinary citizens' support for market competition, redistribution and reciprocity across 14 capitalist economies. Combining data from three comparative surveys, we analyze, first, the extent to which these principles are supported by citizens and whether they cluster into distinct 'moral economies'; second, whether these norms are anchored in formal institutional settings; and finally, how privileged and disadvantaged groups differ in their support. While support for market competition is strong across countries, it is to varying degrees complemented by support for redistribution and reciprocity. We identify a competition-dominated, an embedded and a strongly embedded moral economy. The interplay of formal institutions and people's social–structural position partly explains differences in popular support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores theoretical and empirical features of informal value transfer systems, the illegal transfer of money between jurisdictions. It identifies the trust relationships between the actors involved and discusses four mechanisms used to signal trustworthiness. It then applies these theoretical considerations to China, where transferring money abroad cannot exceed a limited amount, and the process is costly. While most authors stress the importance of trust, we find that informal mechanisms of credible commitments, such as reputation, repeated interaction, hostage taking and sharing compromising information, are used. These strategies underpin an industry that transfers billions of dollars out of China every year. We found no evidence of use of violence or Mafia involvement. The article is based on field research, interviews with bankers and customers, and a review of official documents and news reports in Chinese and English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study wage adjustment during the recent crisis in Italy using a unique dataset on immigrant workers that includes those employed in formal and informal sector. We find that before the crisis immigrants' wages in the formal and informal sectors moved in parallel (with a 15% premium in the formal labor market). During the crisis, however, formal wages did not adjust down while wages in the unregulated informal labor market fell so that by 2013 the gap had grown to 32%. The difference was particularly salient for workers in occupations where the minimum wage is likely to be binding, and in "simple" occupations where there is high substitutability between immigrant and native workers. Calibrating a simple partial equilibrium model of spillovers between formal and informal markets, we find that less than 10% of workers who lost a formal job during the crisis move to the informal sector. We also find that if the formal sector wages were fully flexible, the decline in formal employment would be in the range of 1.5–4.5%—much lower than 16% decline that we observe in the data. (JEL E24, E26, J31, J61) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Tanzania, the health financing system is extremely fragmented with strategies in place to supplement funds provided from the central level. One of these strategies is the Community Health Fund (CHF), a voluntary health insurance scheme for the informal rural sector. As its implementation has been challenging, we investigated different CHF implementation practices and how these practices and the wider health financing context affect CHF implementation and potentially enrolment. Two councils were purposively selected for this study. Routine data relevant for understanding CHF implementation in the wider health financing context were collected at council and public health facility level. Additionally, an economic costing approach was used to estimate CHF administration cost and analyse its financing sources. Our results showed the importance of considering different CHF implementation practices and the wider health financing context when looking at CHF performance. Exemption policies and healthcare-seeking behaviour influenced negatively the maximum potential enrolment rate of the voluntary CHF scheme. Higher revenues from user fees, user fee policies and fund pooling mechanisms might have furthermore set incentives for care providers to prioritize user fees over CHF revenues. Costing results clearly pointed out the lack of financial sustainability of the CHF. The financial analysis however also showed that thanks to significant contributions from other health financing mechanisms to CHF administration, the CHF could be left with more than 70% of its revenues for financing services. To make the CHF work, major improvements in CHF implementation practices would be needed, but given the wider health financing context and healthcare-seeking behaviours, it is questionable whether such improvements are feasible, scalable and value for money. Thus, our results call for a reconsideration of approaches taken to address the challenges in health financing and demonstrate that the CHF cannot be looked at as a stand-alone system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trafficking is considered to be an urgent problem of global proportions warranting a robust transnational legal response. Almost twenty years since the adoption of the Palermo Protocol on Trafficking, scholars, activists and governments alike have debated criminal law, human rights and labour law approaches to the problem. With the incorporation of trafficking in the Sustainable Development Goals, this article goes beyond these conventional approaches to argue for a development approach to trafficking. It suggests that SDG 8 cannot be achieved by rehashing older debates on development in the key of trafficking. Instead, we must account for the expanding welfare functions of the postcolonial developmental state, reimagine labour laws from the vantage point of the informal economy and protect and enforce indigenous responses to extreme exploitation rather than exacerbate the negative externalities of a carceral approach in developing world contexts where the criminal justice system is built on a colonial edifice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, there has been a major growth in the illegal ivory trade. Although this trade has been analysed from a variety of angles, one perspective is missing in the literature, namely the individual ivory trader. Based on in-depth research among illegal ivory traders in Uganda—which is a major transit point of ivory—this article aims to fill this gap. In doing so, and by linking their activities with the literature on the informal economy and the criminalization of the state, the article shows how various structural circumstances—such as war, globalization and the presence of foreign buyers—had a profound impact on the ways in which the illegal ivory trade was conducted. Initially, these circumstances created an increased market, both in supply and demand, which led many traders to engage in this trade. However, an increased crackdown on the illegal ivory trade has made the conditions much more difficult. By analysing how ivory traders navigate these structural circumstances, the article shows a gradual criminalization of the trade. In other words, the more ivory became criminalized, the more criminal linkages were needed to remain active in the trade, and the more significant power differences became. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People working in Ghana's informal sector have low rates of enrolment in the publicly funded National Health Insurance Scheme. Informal sector workers, including migrant girls and women from northern Ghana working as head porters (kayayei), report challenges obtaining insurance and seeking formal health care. This article analyses how health insurance status affects kayayei migrants' care-seeking behaviours. This mixed-methods study involved surveying 625 migrants using respondent-driven sampling and conducting in-depth interviews with a sub-sample of 48 migrants. Analyses explore health status and health seeking behaviours for recent illness/injury. Binary logistic regression modelled the effects of selected independent variables on whether or not a recently ill/injured participant (n = 239) sought health care. Although recently ill/injured participants (38.4%) desired health care, less than half (43.5%) sought care. Financial barriers overwhelmingly limit kayayei migrants from seeking health care, preventing them from registering with the National Health Insurance Scheme, renewing their expired health insurance policies, or taking time away from work. Both insured and uninsured migrants did not seek formal health services due to the unpredictable nature of out-of-pocket expenses. Catastrophic and impoverishing medical expenses also drove participants' migration in search of work to repay loans and hospital bills. Health insurance can help minimize these expenditures, but only 17.4% of currently insured participants (58.2%) reported holding a valid health insurance card in Accra. The others lost their cards or forgot them when migrating. Access to formal health care in Accra remains largely inaccessible to kayayei migrants who suffer from greater illness/injury than the general female population in Accra and who are hindered in their ability to receive insurance exemptions. With internal migration on the rise in many settings, health systems must recognize the varied needs of populations in multi-ethnic and multilingual countries to ensure that internal migrants can access affordable, quality health services across domestic borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The informal sector is often seen as a way for firms to evade regulation. In this paper, I therefore investigate the role of the informal sector in the impact of trade liberalization on employment, wage inequality and welfare in a model of trade with heterogeneous firms and endogenous wage dispersion. The findings suggest that trade liberalization reduces informal employment unambiguously. Contrary to the extant literature, however, its impact on total salaried employment, wage inequality and welfare is country-specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses corporate-led jobless growth propelled by development-induced displacement caused by land acquisition by the State. It shows as its inevitable outcome an expanding informal sector which encroaches upon land-related natural resources allocated to the corporate sector. This reduces the latter's labour productivity and competitiveness along with negative impact on environment and social cohesion. Using the example of India as a multiparty democracy, the paper points to the emergence of a dangerous developmental politics of mutualism between political parties and corporations over land acquisition, which subverts the very democratic process through which political power is wielded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do the 'sharing economies' relate to the long history of informal economic practices as understood in the social sciences? This article examines conceptions of the sharing economy in terms of its relation to scholarship on informality. By using two case studies of informal economic practices that originated in socialist-era societies and continue to the present day in modified forms, we critique the notion that sharing economies are significantly novel in form or logic, other than technologically. We draw attention to the variety of informal economy practices to discuss how they may be socially embedded or disembedded. The main focus on global technological leveraging of productivity and connectivity in sharing economy practices would suggest that many aspects are akin to disembedded forms of informality. Scholarship needs to address the ongoing disciplinary parallelism on prefixed 'economies'--in doing so it would provide a better contextual and theoretical understanding of 'sharing economies'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) jointly revised the recommended treatment for acute paediatric diarrhoea to specify supplementing reduced osmolarity oral rehydration salts (ORS) with zinc. In many countries, however, a significant knowledge-practice gap persists in appropriate diarrhoea management among private healthcare providers. For example, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) project recently demonstrated that over-the-counter medicine sellers (MS) in Ghana recommended inappropriate diarrhoea treatments, despite their demonstrated knowledge of appropriate treatment protocols. To explore and explain these results, we conducted 26 focus groups with MS and their customers using an indirect elicitation approach, presenting simulated drug shop transaction scenarios for each group to analyze and discuss. Through inductive and deductive data analysis, we found that the pattern of customer-MS interactions within the transactional context plays a critical role in shaping dispensing outcomes, not only in diarrhoea management but in other contexts as well. MS who engaged and negotiated with their customers were better able to introduce and promote the appropriate diarrhoea treatment protocol. Several factors hinder optimal interactions. Although MS in fact serve as frontline medical providers, they lack the perceived status of a clinician. Moreover, the need to maintain their customer base creates a power imbalance that favours accommodating customer requests and discourages educational interaction. Finally, many MS lack a complete understanding of the recommended treatment, limiting their ability to educate and negotiate. These findings have important implications for efforts to position community-level private providers to improve outcomes across a number of health areas; the study recommends three broad approaches related to training design, marketing, and professional linkages. More generally, behaviour change initiatives should recognize the potential impact of provider interaction dynamics in facilitating or impeding desired health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal employment is a pervasive and persistent feature of most developing and developed economies. Labour taxation and labour market regulations are deemed two major causes for operating in the informal sector. Using data from France, Italy, and Spain, we analyse gross job flows and gross worker flows in the formal and informal sectors in the presence of lenient employment protection legislation, and investigate the way traditional policy interventions may favour transitions from one sector to the other. We show that optimal outcomes in terms of reduction and formalisation of informal jobs across the three countries examined are achieved with the combination of lower payroll taxes for permanent contracts and higher inspection rate for firms operating in the informal sector. Coupling lower firing costs with more frequent labour inspections also reduces informality, but this comes at the cost of an increased ratio of temporary to total employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a search-theoretic model of contractual dualism in formal and informal labour markets. The model (i) provides the micro-underpinnings for endogenous determination of employer market power in the formal and informal sectors, (ii) offers a unified and coherent set-up whereby a host of salient features of developing country labour markets can be explained together and (iii) places for the first time the Stiglerian prescription of the optimal (unemployment minimising) minimum wage in the broader context of labour markets where formal job creation is costly, where employer market power is endogenous and where formal employment, informal employment and unemployment coexist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the informal sector, as a group of potential 'free riders' for public welfare goods, relates to individual social policy preferences in low- and middle-income countries. The exclusion hypothesis proposes that a large informal sector lowers the preferences from formal workers and the middle- and high-income groups for social services to be provided by the state, and raises these groups' preferences for public welfare goods to become club goods. In contrast, the prospect hypothesis argues that formal workers, particularly the middle-income group, ally themselves to the informal sector to insure against the risk of future employment in informality. The study examines individual preferences for the provision of pensions and health care by either the state or private enterprises. The two competing hypotheses are tested with a hierarchical model using survey data from Latin America for 1995, 1998 and 2008. The findings offer support for the exclusion hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large and growing informal sector is a major feature of developing countries. I analyze coagglomeration patterns between formal and informal manufacturing enterprises in India, and study (i) the causes underlying these patterns, and (ii) the positive externalities, if any, on the entry of new firms. I find that buyer–seller and technology linkages explain much of formal–informal coagglomeration. I also find that this sectoral, within-industry, coagglomeration matters mostly to small- and medium-sized formal firms births. Traditional measures of agglomeration remain important in explaining new industrial activity, whether in the formal or the informal sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses several of the insights generated by a theory of the formation of relationships between heterogeneously risk-averse individuals who lack access to formal insurance. An example illustrates the policy relevance of the theory, and demonstrates a relationship between the emergence of entrepreneurship in developing economies and higher income inequality. Reducing aggregate risk is a strict Pareto improvement if relationships in the status quo are assumed to remain constant, but is shown to be particularly harmful for the most risk-averse individuals and to exacerbate inequality when the endogenous network response is taken into account: the least risk-averse individuals abandon their roles as informal insurers in favor of entrepreneurial partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the effect of UI benefits in a typical developing country where the informal sector is sizeable and persistent. In a partial equilibrium environment, ruling out the macroeconomic consequences of UI benefits, we characterize the stationary equilibrium of an economy where policyholders may be employed in the formal sector, short-run unemployed receiving UI benefits or long-run unemployed without UI benefits. We perform comparative static exercises to understand how UI benefits affect unemployed workers' effort to secure a formal job and their labor supply in the informal sector. Our model reveals that an increase in UI benefits generates two opposing effects for the short-run unemployed. First, since search efforts cannot be monitored it generates moral hazard behaviors that lower effort. Second, it generates an income effect as it reduces the marginal cost of searching for a formal job and increases effort. Even though in general it is ambiguous which effect dominates, we show that for short durations UI benefits increase unemployed worker's effort to secure a formal-sector job and decreases informal-sector work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores shifting perspectives on African clandestine economies. Previously condemned as products of clientelism and corruption, clandestine economies are attracting renewed interest for their developmental potential in weak state contexts. Focusing on systems of illicit cross-border trade in East and West Africa, this article shows that more favourable views of clandestine trading activities are driven more by their compatibility with liberal reform agendas than by their positive contribution to local development. Indeed, the optimistic turn in perspectives on illicit African trade glosses over its increasingly negative impact on local security and development. While discourses of violence and criminalization were used to characterize the largely peaceful cross-border trading systems in West Africa in the 1990s, new discourses of hybrid governance and state building are used to frame the more violent and socially disruptive cross-border trading complexes of East Africa in the 2000s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]