Search

Most Russian cities are currently facing major transformation processes in the public transport supply. Commercial paratransit services, known as marshrutkas, have been criticised heavily for unsafe and uncomfortable facilities as well as for anti-social business behaviour, prone to tax evasion and daily penny wars on the street. Consequently, many municipalities have enforced various strategies to restrict informal marshrutka services. This article compares the distinct policy strategies of two municipalities, Rostov on Don and Volgograd, and discusses the different outcomes. When analysing the case studies, two prevailing discourses seem to have informed the locally applied transport policies: a neoliberal, free market approach that perceives the loosely regulated commercial transport operations superior to state-led services and a rather neo-modernist perception of informal transport operation, calling for a rigorous push back of marshrutka mobility. Prominent in both policy discourses is the notion of informality as an instrument to govern the transport setting. Reviewing the developing field of informal transport studies, the article argues that the governments of the respective cities have employed (simplified) notions of informality as a legitimisation argument to take action. A closer perspective on the daily operations, however, unveils a socially institutionalised transport service full of complex operation practices beyond policy-strategic divides between the formal and informal. The contribution utilises the formal/informal nexus successfully developed in urban studies and applies it to international transport studies. Thus it enables the unveiling of insufficiencies in urban transport provision without falling in the trap of superficial modernisation narratives.

We consider an emerging economy with a dual production structure, exemplified by China, and examine the income distribution and welfare effects of supporting and expanding the urban informal sector. In the short run, with a given number of urban manufacturing firms, a land-rent policy for supporting the informal sector narrows the wage inequality between skilled and unskilled labor, but in the long run the policy can widen the skilled-unskilled wage gap due to the free entry of manufacturing firms into the urban industrial sector. Conversely, the land-supply policy yields the opposite effects by increasing the wage gap in the short run while the gap is reducing in the long run with firm exit in the urban industrial sector. The analysis is extended to the scenario that skilled labor is interested in migrating to the informal sector. The policy implications of corporate social responsibility (CSR) applicable to both informal stall business and formal business can be deduced accordingly.

This article aims first to investigate the main determinants of the informal economy (IE) in Algeria using the Multiple Indicator Multiple Causes (MIMIC) approach, second to estimate its size and development, third analyse the relationship in the short and long run between the informal and formal economy, and finally to explore the causality direction by employing the Granger causality test from 1980 to 2017. The results showed that the tax burden, the agricultural sector, the quality of institutions, and the GDP per capita are the main determinants of the IE in Algeria. The average IE size is 33.48% of official GDP, and it has been increasing in size over the past 15 years. Furthermore, it has been found that the IE positively affects the formal economy in the short run, while in the long run, this effect is reversed. Moreover, unidirectional Granger causality from GDP to IE is found. As for policy implications, in order to lower the size of IE in Algeria, the government needs to reconsider its tax policies, including the re-examination of policies implemented to stimulate the agricultural sector, which half of their effects are absorbed by the IE, and the generalization of the use of electronic transactions in economic activities.

As an emerging donor, China’s growing role in the international development arena has provoked much debate. This paper explores the effects of China’s aid on its Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) to the recipient countries with great prevalence of informal economy, which is often neglected in recent research. Using a dataset of 51 countries receiving China’s aid during 2003–2014, we find that aid from China promotes China’s OFDI flows to the recipient countries. Moreover, the existence of the informal economy of recipient countries accelerates their inflows of FDI from China, while undermines the facilitating effects of China’s aid on its OFDI to the recipient countries. In addition, the undermining effects of informal economy are found only for African countries, rather than Asian countries. However, a sharp contrast is found from the case of the US. Therefore, our findings suggest that informal economy should be under serious consideration in the research.

Informal work is traditionally large in Russia and has further increased in the recent years. We explore the implications of this shift in terms of wage dynamics. Our characterization is based on the estimation of informal pay gaps at the mean and along the wage distribution, relying on the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey for 2003–2017. Our approach comprises three original features: we rely on unconditional quantile effects of informality, we incorporate quantile-specific fixed effects using a tractable approach, and we suggest a treatment of the incidental parameter bias. Over the whole period, informal wage penalties are relatively small and do not suggest heavily segmented labor markets, even at low wage levels. Yet, in the past decade, a substantial negative selection into informal employment and self-employment has taken place, on average and especially at low earnings. Economic downturns and labor market policies have likely contributed to the shakeout of less productive workers in the formal sector, making the low-tier informal sector more of a last resort.

Recycling strategies and waste management for the source separation of recyclables are still in their infancy in China and many other developing countries. Unlike formal recycling systems with strictly regulated management in high-income countries, waste management and recycling activities in low-income and middle-income countries are predominantly informal. Formal recycling systems often have very small amounts of recyclables in comparison to informal recycling systems. Considering the Chinese case of urban Guangzhou, where formal and informal recycling systems coexist, this study investigated household recycling behaviour and explored the sociodemographic and contextual factors that affect this behaviour. Based on data collected through questionnaire surveys and interviews, a model of the use of public recycling facilities (UPRF) and a model of the use of informal recycling sectors (UIRS) were evaluated using correlations and multiple regression analyses. The findings indicated that the use of public recycling facilities can be significantly predicted by the launch of a source separation scheme, the physical setting and satisfaction with public recycling facilities. The sociodemographic variables did not significantly predict the use of public recycling facilities but did significantly predict the use of informal recycling sectors. This study’s findings have implications for researchers and policymakers and shed light on public designs for sustainability.

The scarring theory predicts that the effect of present unemployment will potentially last for the individual’s entire remaining working lifetime. This paper investigates how self-employment in the informal sector, rather than unemployment per se, influences the scarring effects in Indonesia, where informality is prevalent. It finds that the scarring effect due to previous unemployment is more observable among senior workers, while that due to previous self-employment is more significant among young workers aged 25–34 years. This indicates limited opportunity for human capital accumulation in self-employment and/or use of this information as an indicator of low productivity by employers.

The shadow economy (SE) is a pathological normalcy, not only in developing countries but also in developed ones, causing disagreeable distortions in the real economy. In this paper, we estimate the size of the informal sector in nineteen countries of the European Union (EU) by implementing three variations of the physical input approach (we use electricity consumption as input). All estimates show that EU countries experience high shadow economy levels with a decreasing trend. Moreover, we assess the explanatory power of three governance quality indicators of the informal sector using a set of panel regression specifications as well as a set of quantile regression specifications. Both approaches show that overall governance quality is the most prominent factor in determining the SE levels. Given the inherent advantage of quantile regression to identify impact differentiations across the conditional distribution of the dependent variable a significant policy action is revealed. In particular, countries with high shadow economy levels can reduce their informal sector, at an increasing rate, by improving governance quality.

Nowadays, old electrical and electronic gadgets are being replaced constantly by newer versions resulting in huge amounts of waste electronic and electrical products that are collectively termed e-waste. It is estimated that 95% of e-waste recycling in India is done by the informal sector at the cost of their health and the environment. Very little data and no descriptions of recycling processes in the formal sector in India were available in the literature. The objective of this study was to evaluate the status of formal and informal e-waste recycling facilities in India. Seven authorized e-waste handling facilities in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi were visited and most were involved in dismantling work only. In all cases, metals, plastic and glass are recovered from e-waste in compliance with environmental legislation. Challenges faced by the formal sector include lack of awareness among people and very few collection centers throughout the country. Quantification of e-waste generated in India was difficult as imported second-hand electrical and electronic gadgets cannot be separated for electronic waste. There is no mechanism for collecting data regarding e-waste generation in the states or at the Central government level. It is likely that published estimates are based on the indigenous production and import of electrical and electronic goods. The current installed e-waste handling capacity of 11 × 105 tons/year of e-waste in the country is woefully inadequate and needs to be enhanced as the minimum requirement is estimated to be 22 × 105 tons/year of e-waste.

As populations age, countries across the globe are dealing with the issue of how to fund retirement consumption for their workers. The design of Social Security programs is more difficult when the country also exhibits an informal economy where workers avoid the taxation of the government and are not entitled to its benefits. In this paper, I study the example of Chile–a country that transitioned from a pay-as-you-go Social Security system to a system of private, individual retirement accounts in 1981 and also exhibits a significant informal sector–in order to quantify the transitional welfare impact of Social Security privatization when workers have the option to evade the public system through informality. I construct an OLG model which allows households to split working time between a taxed formal sector, an untaxed informal sector, and home production. I find large long-run welfare gains of roughly 10 and 15 percent for low and high-productivity workers, respectively. However, these gains come at the expense of losses for two groups: low-productivity workers who are retired at the time of the reform and high-productivity workers within 5 years of retirement at the time of the reform. The presence of informality leads to conflicting mechanisms: (1) the elasticity channel decreases welfare gains from reform: including informality as imperfectly substitutable with formality in utility decreases labor supply elasticity and renders the pay-as-you-go payroll tax less distortionary, and (2) the market wage channel increases welfare gains from reform: the privatization of the Social Security system causes wage growth which informal workers can receive without facing the distortions of any remaining taxation in the formal sector. Quantitative results indicate the elasticity channel is stronger in the case of Chile, and the inclusion of informality decreases the long-run welfare gains from privatizing Social Security.

Although the informal sector of waste collection has an important role in income diversification for the poor and contribution to waste recycling, this sector is still not recognised in any government official policies and is usually underestimated in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. This paper employs a systems thinking approach to analyse the crucial roles of the informal sector in solid waste management (SWM) system in Vietnam. From a circular economy viewpoint, the flow diagram was built for the first time, which could integrate the actors and activities of the informal sector into a wider SWM system in Vietnam. The map focuses on analysing the contributions and activities of the informal sector, focusing on its roles and impacts on the recycling system. This paper then employed the systems thinking approach to further analyse the systematic problem of the informal sector. The analysis builds on the field survey including elements and key driving forces of the systems with 36 scrap dealers, 127 scrap buyers, and 760 households and in-depth interviews with experts in the Mekong Delta region, Vietnam. Based on the practices and experience in waste-related activities of informal sector, this sector should be integrated into the general waste management process. With the relevance of informal systems, the authorities could establish an effective waste recycling system, and improve the livelihoods and working conditions of those involved, especially the poor.

Limited resources and high treatment costs are arguments often used in many public health systems in low- and middle-income countries to justify providing limited treatments for people with infertility. In this analysis, we apply a government public economic perspective to evaluate public subsidy for in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in South Africa. A fiscal model was developed that considered lifetime direct and indirect taxes paid and government transfers received by a child conceived by IVF. The model was constructed from public data sources and was adjusted for mortality, age-specific educational costs, participation in the informal economy, proportions of persons receiving social grants, and health costs. Based on current proportions of individuals receiving social grants and average payments, including education and health costs, we estimate each citizen will receive ZAR513,165 (USD35,587) in transfers over their lifetime. Based on inflated age-specific earnings, we estimate lifetime direct and indirect taxes paid per citizen of ZAR452,869 (USD31,405) and ZAR494,521 (USD34,294), respectively, which also includes adjustments for the proportions of persons participating in the informal economy. The lifetime net tax after deducting transfers was estimated to be ZAR434,225 (USD31,112) per person. Based on the average IVF investment cost needed to achieve one live birth, the fiscal return on investment (ROI) for the South African Government is 5.64. Varying the discount rate from 4% to 7%, the ROI ranged from 9.54 to 1.53, respectively. Positive economic benefits can emanate from public financing of IVF. The fiscal analytic framework described here can be a useful approach for health services to evaluate future public economic benefits.

Income is an important indicator to test whether the labor market is equal. Based on the data of Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) from 2010、2013 and 2015, this paper uses JMP decomposition method to decompose the income difference between formal and informal employment in tourism. The results show that the income difference between the formal employed and the self-employed increased by 17.4% from 2010、2013 and 2015, while the income difference between the formal employed and the informal employed decreased by 16.4%. The former is attributed to the difference in predicted gap, while the latter is attributed to the quantity effect, price effect and difference in residual gap. In view of the relevant conclusions, it is of great significance to improve the human capital of tourism informal employees to narrow the income gap.

This paper adds to the literature on capacity utilization at the firm level by considering the influences of institutions. Specifically, we consider the threat of informal competition as a sign of weakness of internal institutions, and corruption as a signal of the weakness of external institutions. The extant literature has generally considered the role of market and technical factors in dictating capacity utilization. Results, using data across more than 100 nations, show that both corruption and informal competition undermine firms' incentives to use capacity maximally. We also consider the role of infrastructure bottlenecks. Our findings showed that water supply constraints and severe electric supply restrictions limited firms’ ability to utilize capacity, but transportation limitations were not similarly binding. Further, firms' attributes, including size, age, ownership structure, and managerial experience have important bearings. An important implication is that firms’ inability to utilize capacity might be rooted in factors beyond technical constraints.

Since the 1990s, Burkina Faso has intensified the implementation of supporting policies to enhance the access to capital and liquidity in the informal sector. This paper analyzes the effects of these public policies on incomes, employment and economic growth by taking into account the interactions between the informal sector, the formal sector and the agricultural sector. For that purpose, policy shocks are simulated through the Partnership for Economic Policy Network's static computable general equilibrium (CGE) model which is adapted to the structure of a 2008-based social accounting matrix developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute. Our results highlight mixed effects including a paradoxical contraction of the informal sector, the formal sector and economic growth as well as an improvement of the informal households and the farmers’ incomes.

Background The extension of industrialization in rural India during previous decade has opened wide employment opportunities. As a result, the per-capita income and expenditure capability of these individuals and their families have raised. However informal sectors in rural areas, particularly with restricted public health care facilities and lack of social security scheme coverage, out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenditure could result in catastrophic health expenditure (CHE). Aim To study the relation of sociodemographic and occupational factors with CHE among rural informal sector families. Method ology: All 13 villages of Gangad (Gujarat state, India) primary health care catchment area was cross sectionally investigated. After informed written consent, data regarding sociodemographic profile, total health expenditure and health facility access were collected from 429 representative households through pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire. The sample was categorized based on the major source of income (occupation). SPSS software was used to execute the statistical analysis. Results About 61.8% families accessed government health facilities. While 71% of families were from lower-middle and lower socioeconomic class experiencing the brunt of CHE (i.e. 57.9% of families in this sociodemographic group experienced CHE). The proportion of CHEs among families accessing public health care facilities had substantially lower (13.2%); whereas higher proportion of CHEs were reported among families of factory workers (45.5%) and agricultural labor (25.5%). Conclusion In the interest of reducing the OOP health expenditure (thereby reducing the incidence of CHE) and sustainable growth, the vulnerable informal sector is recommended to be adequately protected under social security schemes by either government or employer.

Significant opportunities exist to connect more directly sexuality research to urbanisation research in the global South. This article considers such connections in relation to the informal sector, the state, and urban health. It highlights how such connections can help surface the strategic and pragmatic choices made by same-sex communities in the face of persistent urban challenges in the global South. The article draws on examples from sub-Saharan Africa, a region that exhibits significant sexuality-based discrimination and which has had significant urban research attention.

Sustainable management of vehicles at their end-of-life stage (ELVs) offers a significant potential for resource recovery by closing the material loop and thus contributes to dealing with scarcity of resources. Although ELVs till date in countries like India are considered as waste and not as secondary resource material (SRM), but, if used judiciously, may obviate the extraction of primary or virgin materials. Although policymakers have focused on ways to ensure higher resource efficiency in the automobile sector, research on the role of the informal sector in recovering useful materials and parts from ELVs is limited. The present study examines the current situation of ELV processing at Mayapuri scrap market, one of the largest informal markets for ELVs in Asia wherein, mass-balance approach is used to examine how hatchback cars are disposed. A conceptual framework depicting process flow and the interactions between the multiple stakeholders involved in this sector has been developed. Further, approximately 7% of aluminium and 76% of iron, by weight, were recovered from the sampled hatchback cars. These results were used for estimating the potential to recycle and to recover useful materials from ELVs that are processed by the informal sector in India. Under the business-as-usual scenario, the estimates show that the sector can recover about 0.34 million tonnes of aluminium and 4.03 million tonnes of iron by 2030. These figures indicate the huge potential of this sector in a circular economy and highlight the need to make operations in this sector more formal and to include informal players in the value chain to address the scarcity of these resource.

Objective This study aimed to determine the factors associated with ownership of independent National Health Insurance (NHI) in market traders, Gowa District, Indonesia. Method This type of research was quantitative with a cross-sectional design. The population was 567 traders. Samples were 85 respondents: data collection using questionnaires, and data processing with Chi-square test analysis. Result The results indicated that 43 (50.6%) respondents had NHI, and 42 (49.45%) respondents did not. Based on the results obtained bivariate analysis knowledge (p = 0.003), income (p = 0.039), attitude (p = 0.000), social support (p = 0.000), age (p = 1.000), education (p = 0.311), perception (p = 0.234) and access to care (p = 0.336). Conclusion Factors related to the ownership of independent NHI traders in the Central Public Market Gowa were knowledge, income, attitude, and social support. It is recommended that market managers include traders in health insurance and the government improve the quality of the NHI program and increase socialization to informal sector traders.

The debate on the effects of import competition on sectoral composition of employment remains unsettled. Using the case of the Indian manufacturing sector and exploiting plausibly exogenous variation from Chinese imports, we provide the first causal evidence that higher import competition increases the share of the formal sector employment. We nd an increase in the level of formal sector employment, driven by firms in the top 50% of the productivity distribution, and in contrast, a fall in the informal sector employment. This labor reallocation from informal to formal enterprises is enabled by the usage of contract workers, who do not carry stringent ring costs and are usually not covered by trade unions. Our estimates imply that Chinese import competition led to an increase in the share of formal sector employment by 3.9 percentage points between 2000-2001 and 2005-2006, which suggests an increase in aggregate labor productivity by 3.28%. Our results are robust to an instrumental variables estimation, and controlling for a host of other potential trade channels and worker characteristics.

This paper investigates the effects of trade liberalisation induced labour demand shocks on informal employment in China. We employ a local labour market approach to construct a regional measure of exposure to import tariffs by exploiting initial differences in industrial composition across prefectural cities and then link it with the employment status of individuals. Using three waves of household survey data between 1995 and 2007, our results show that workers from regions that experienced a larger tariff cut were more likely to be employed informally. Further results based on firm-level data reveal a consistent pattern; tariff reductions increased the share of informal workers within firms. Such effects are more salient among smaller and less productive firms. Our findings suggest an important margin of labour market adjustment in response to trade shocks in developing countries, i.e. employment adjustment along the formal-informal dimension.

This study examines the influence of financial development (FD), along three dimensions (financial depth, financial access and financial efficiency) in two main sub-sectors (financial institutions and financial markets), on the shadow economy’s (SE) size. Several econometric techniques and estimation strategies were applied to a balanced panel data set of a global sample of 114 economies and three sub-samples (low and lower-middle-income economies (LMEs), upper-middle-income economies (UMEs) and high-income economies (HIEs)) for the period 2002–2015. First, nine financial indicators were found to minimise the SE. Interestingly, financial institutions, especially financial institutions’ efficiency, had a more significant effect on the SE than financial markets. Second, there was evidence that the non-linear nexuses between FD and SE were U-shaped for eight of the nine financial indicators, the exception being financial institutions’ efficiency. Third, financial depth and financial access had a positive impact on the SE in the short run, while financial institutions appeared to reduce the SE in the long run. Fourth, the negative effects of FD on the SE were noticeable in LMEs and UMEs and dominant in HIEs in the long run. The non-linear relationships were consistent in UMEs, despite some variations in LMEs and HIEs.

Objective To check for associations between various types of job insecurity and self-reported sleeping problems. Design A population-based, cross-sectional study. Setting Spain, 2016. Participants Salaried workers included in the third Psychosocial Risks Survey (n = 1807). Measurements: We investigated the association between 6 subjective and 2 attributed indicators of job insecurity (exposure) with 5 sleep problem variables (difficulty falling sleep, difficulty sleeping through the night, waking up too early, sleeping restlessly, and a composite variable summing all the sleeping problems) using Poisson regression, and controlling for socioeconomic, occupational, and demographic factors. Results Anticipating a salary decrease or working at a company where staff restructuring had occurred in the preceding year were associated with sleeping problems. Having a temporary or informal employment contract and most domains of perceived job insecurity were not a significant factor in adjusted models. Conclusions Recent or anticipated economic hardship within a worker's household was the main predictor of sleeping problems. More research is needed to elucidate the exact mechanisms through which the experience of aspects of downsizing might manifest in disruptions to employees’ sleep. Sleep health should be an active part of all employee wellness programs.

In 2006, Turkish policymakers introduced new measures to reduce informality and encourage formality, in which the primary means of combatting informality were stricter enforcement of existing labor market laws and deterrence through fines, without any appropriate adjustments in formal labour costs. In this paper we show that even without any change in enforcement and deterrence, in an economy growing with capital accumulation like in Turkey, informality gradually and naturally declines. Furthermore, we propose alternative labour market policy changes like reductions in minimum wage and payroll taxes to reduce informal employment share, and assess the relative effectiveness of these policy changes. (C) 2020 The Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This paper explains how formalizing and supporting artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) – low-tech, labor-intensive mineral processing and extraction – would help governments in sub-Saharan Africa meet several targets linked the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While most of the men and women found working in ASM in the region choose to operate without the requisite permits and are rarely monitored or regulated, the local impacts of their activities are significant. After examining the long historical trajectory that has relegated most ASM activities in sub-Saharan Africa to the informal economy, three of the sector’s more obvious economic impacts are reviewed: its contribution to regional mineral outputs; how operations create employment opportunities for millions of people directly, and millions more in the downstream and upstream industries they spawn; and the links the sector has with subsistence agriculture, dynamics which have important implications for food security and gender equality. These contributions alone are sufficient justification for featuring ASM more prominently in the plans, policies and programs being launched in sub-Saharan Africa to help host governments meet their commitments to the SDGs.

Supply chains operating in informal sector of emerging economies are mostly characterised by inefficiencies, highly price sensitive customers, fragmented markets, frequent operational disturbances, and members with irrational profit seeking behaviour (naive members). We focus on cost disturbances and measure their effects in terms of demand variation (QV) in muti-echelon informal supply chain. We show how naive members contribute to amplification and transmission of QV across the supply chain. Strategic members (characterised by rational profit seeking behaviour) on the contrary, dampens the transmission of QV. Efficient reconfiguration solutions are proposed which minimize the QV for a specific cost disturbance scenario. Rational profit seeking behaviour is one of the criteria for selecting members in this reconfiguration. Rapid reconfiguration in these supply chains is possible due to the existence of informal contracts. A robust deviation reconfiguration solution is also proposed which performs satisfactorily over entire disturbance scenario set. Goodness of this solution is evaluated according to two metrics; namely cost penalty and robust efficiency. Lastly, an illustrative case study on apparel supply chain is presented and it is inferred from the discussion that large aggregators are both cost and robust efficient, hence their presence in supply chain improves performance of robust solution along the two metrics (cost penalty, robust efficiency).

This paper develops a two-sector growth model with formal and informal sectors for an economy that cares about redistribution and illustrates its relationship with the enforcement level. The technology gap and labour rigidity explicate the duality. The state can tax the formal sector to subsidise informal income and finance public infrastructure. Alternatively, enforcement, which is costly and corresponds to a variety of discrete components from the security of property rights and integrity of contracts to control of corruptions, can be chosen to favour the formal sector and discourage the informal sector. It is observed that weaker enforcement required to accommodate some degree of informality, which releases tax burden from the formal sector needed for redistribution, can accelerate growth rate. However, sufficiently weaker enforcement dampens the formal sector expansion and growth rate. The growth rate registers an inverted-U shaped relationship against the enforcement level. The optimum enforcement can, however, be higher without formal labour union and subsidisation. This must be higher for welfare maximisation than that of growth rate, especially when the consumer cares about the quality of enforcement.

This paper develops and estimates a life-cycle on-the-job search model with self-employment that captures labor market stylized facts typical of middle-income developing economies. Workers flow across unemployment, self-employment, formal and informal wage employment. Individuals differ across and within employment sectors in terms of earnings, self-employment ability and transition rates. Counterfactual analysis shows that a flat reduction in payroll taxation increases the share of formal sector workers mainly due to a drop in self-employment. A proportional reduction in payroll taxes improves total welfare by increasing formal sector wages and profits, and allowing for a better allocation of high education workers. Converting to a progressive payroll tax system, equivalent to a flat reduction, is ineffective in reducing informality and leads to a decline in total welfare.

This article examines the relationship between corruption and export in emerging economies. Considering the institution-based view (IBV) and the specificities of emerging markets, we propose a U-shaped relationship between firm corruption and exports. A moderate level of corruption may dampen firms' inclination to export, but excessive expenditures on corruption will drive firms to resort to an export strategy as a way to escape institutional constraints and inefficiencies in their home markets. We further examine the moderating roles of political instability, regulatory burden, and threats of competition from the informal sector in the relationship between corruption and export. Based on a multi-country sample of firms from emerging economies, our empirical results confirm a U-shaped relationship between firms' corruption and exports and show that in a business environment with high levels of political instability, regulatory burden or threats of competition from the informal sector, the relationship between corruption and exportation is strengthened to varying degrees.

The world population is becoming more urbanized, wealthier but also more wasteful. The resolution of the problem of ever increasing amounts of solid waste is not yet a priority in many developing countries where informal organization has managed to partially tackle the problem. In this article we explore the interface between formal and informal waste management in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). The aim of this article is to comparatively evaluate the main challenges of urban solid waste management for the BRICS from an institutional point of view. Based on a literature review, interviews with experts on the BRICS and a search for relevant legislation and formal institutions, evidence of informal institutions and the informal economy’s role following New Institutional Economics was considered. The results indicate that while in Brazil and South Africa there is a state incentive to formalize scavenging for more efficient outcomes, Russia shows a significant blind-spot on the issue, China apparently awaits a technological solution to the problem, and India’s cultural, ethnic and caste-based divide of society make recent policies aimed at improving waste pickers’ conditions challenging to enforce. This research has shown that it is not as much an issue of enforcement of the (often recent) legislations, but rather one of cultural and informal organizational factors, that play into the issue of continued problems concerning waste management. For achieving waste management policy goals, we suggest a more open multi-stakeholder approach to the inclusion of informal organizations in public waste management.

The Thai gem and jewellery industry employs up to 900,000 people including many women in the formal sector and many more in the informal sector. This contrasts with the limited participation of women in the gem industry in India and Sri Lanka. There is little research into the role of women in the operation of the industry. This research used entrepreneurship ecosystem theory to understand the Thai institutions that support and hinder women in the Thai industry. Interviews were conducted across Bangkok and Chanthaburi and detailed life histories were recorded of women owned businesses in the Jewellery Trade Centre. Thai women are influential in the industry and there are positive workplaces where women can play an important role. Universities and government institutions are key enablers but there is still gendered division of labour with women earning less than men in some sectors. Cultural norms also prevent them from achieving their full potential. Some women are working informally in very poor conditions. As Thailand seeks to become the global gem and jewellery industry leader, it needs to foster an entrepreneurial ecosystem that develops a new generation of gemstone entrepreneurs, especially its women and youth.

The use of mobile phones for financial services in the global South has gained prominence in the last decade. These financial technology (FinTech) services, popularly known as mobile money (MM), offer an avenue for financial inclusivity, a recurring theme in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This paper, largely conceptual but interlaced with empirical examples from Ghana and Bangladesh, critically examines the rise of mobile money in the global South. Specifically, it employs David Harvey’s adaptation and redeployment of the laws of accumulation to relate the economic phenomenon of MM to the capitalistic relationship between capital and labor. We argue, among other points, that MM emerges as a techno-market fix to make visible, bankable, and taxable the hitherto invisible, unbanked, and untaxed urban sub-proletariat who are mostly engaged in the informal sector. Thus, whether in sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia, the underlying laws of accumulation through MM are the same: make informality visible in order to decode wealth, and accumulate for the sake of accumulation. We conclude by briefly reflecting on how our arguments contribute to the literature on economic, digital, and development geographies of postcolonial economies in the global South.

While previous comparative research has identified the formal institutional conditions that differentiate countries on their degree of informal entrepreneurship, this paper examines the characteristics that shape cross-national diversity in its type. Based on a series of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analyses (fs/QCA) of 138 country cases, we find evidence of causal heterogeneity in the configuration of institutional conditions associated with entrepreneurial outcomes that are informal and growth-oriented and those that are informal and subsistence-oriented. Given our results, we propose that the formal institutional-based conditions that differentiate between types of informal sectors are best identified by the conjoint mixture of strength and weakness of state capabilities across multiple domains, rather than by uniform weakness, or voids, along all state functions. In our discussion, we explore the implication of our configurational-based findings for the comparative analysis of national systems of informal entrepreneurship and for the tailoring of policies to account for the multiple institutional-based pathways by which entrepreneurs come to enter into the informal economy.

This paper examines how trade costs induced by geographic distance or bilateral tariffs impact the markups of exports differentiated by quality. It relies on a data set that combines Argentinean firm-level wine exports with experts’ wine ratings as a measure of quality. Exporters price discriminate across destinations by raising markups in more distant markets, and by lowering them in high-tariff countries. However, the response of markups to changes in trade costs is heterogeneous and weaker for higher quality exports. These empirical patterns can be predicted by trade models featuring demand functions more convex than log-concave, but less than superconvex. They demonstrate that the variation in firm-level export unit values across markets is not only driven by quality differences but also by markup variation conditional on quality.

In this issue of One Earth, Tucker and Anantharaman discuss how the integration (not necessarily formalization) of the informal sector addresses poverty and exclusion better than capitalist alternatives. It is crucial that we recognize the essential role of the informal sector, particularly waste pickers, in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

This review article uses India's e-waste economy to examine changes in the circular economy. Today, due to a mix of consumptive economies, urban ecological concerns and its disposal in the informal economy, e-waste governance is a critical issue for the country like it is elsewhere. Drawing on preliminary ethnographic findings in the e-waste sector in Jaipur, this review challenges some of the findings on surplus labour by observing the longstanding domination of caste and kinship structures in the domestic e-waste trade. I argue that we need to study expanding spatialities of e-waste through multi-site ethnographies and a focus on context specificities that would enrich our theorization of waste.

We examine the role of informal production in the international transmission of shocks. Our novel contribution is to show that informal production has an important impact on the observed cyclical properties of consumption, employment, and trade, which is effected through expenditure switching and labor re-allocation in response to productivity shocks. As such, the presence of an informal sector helps rationalize distinct empirical regularities that differentiate emerging from advanced economies. Our quantitative results highlight key structural aspects of the informal sector that are informative for the conduct of stabilization and labor market policy in emerging economies. The model is quantitatively assessed for the case of Mexico vis-a-vis the U.S.

We provide evidence, based on a large sample of countries, on the effects of financial crises on key labor market indicators, including official and unofficial employment, unemployment and the participation rate. Crises are followed by a drop in the official market participation rate and by an increase in informal employment. These responses are strongly persistent. Empirical results are then interpreted with a DSGE model which accounts for informality and for financial and labor market frictions. In this framework the informal sector acts as a buffer which absorbs workers in bad times and vice versa. Our simulations suggest the informal sector also is a crisis amplifier for the official economy. For a given financial shock, the ensuing contraction in the official economy is deeper and more persistent the larger the initial size of the unofficial sector. This implies that in less developed economies financial crises cause a relatively stronger reallocation of inputs towards less efficient sectors, expose a larger fraction of the population to the adverse effects of informality, cause a sharper deterioration of public finances limiting governments ability to supply public goods and to engage in countercyclical fiscal policies.

Using a unique national-level household survey of informal labor in the United States, this paper examines the extent that rural versus urban residence influences the types and forms of participation in informal work activities. The informal economy consists of work activities that generate income or reduce expenditures outside the scope of state regulation in contexts where these activities otherwise would be regulated. Often associated with developing and transition economies, past research using both qualitative and quantitative methods demonstrate its prevalence in industrial and postindustrial economies. In the U.S., most of this research is geographically constrained or limited to specific subpopulations and sectors. Our analysis employs descriptive and multivariate techniques to analyze a national-level household survey on informal economic activity to explore rural-urban variation in the prevalence, forms, importance and correlates of participation in the informal economy.

Despite a large literature analyzing trade liberalization in developing countries, little evidence exists around its effects in sub-Saharan African economies characterized by high levels of baseline unemployment and weak manufacturing sectors. Using a local labor market approach, we investigate the causal effects of tariff reforms implemented in South Africa between 1994 and 2004 on labor market outcomes at the individual level. More specifically, we construct a district-level measure of exposure to tariff reductions equal to a weighted average of industry tariffs using baseline industry shares as weights, and estimate the effect of this shock on local economies. We find that workers in districts facing larger tariff reductions experience a significant decline in both formal and informal employment in the tradable sector, driven primarily by a decline in manufacturing employment, relative to workers in districts less exposed to these reductions. There is no evidence of any significant effect on wages for those who remain employed. However, displaced workers do not show any evidence of transitions into other sectors, or migration to less affected regions; rather, they are more likely to become discouraged workers or exit the labor force entirely, and show an increased probability of accessing government transfers.

This is a concise review of articles pertaining to studies in the recent past showing the evidence for emission of industrial persistent organic pollutants (iPOPs) such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) from major metropolitan cities of India. Recent studies have shown the occurrence of relatively higher levels of iPOPs such as PCBs and PBDEs because of informal electronic waste recycling. This reflects a relatively newer source of these compounds in India. Prospect of recovering resources from electronic waste is promising on the economic front for the informal sector, but emission of toxic PCBs and PBDEs was found to be inevitable. Lack of sustainable techniques and practice of rudimentary methods for recycling by informal recyclers are leading to emission of several hazardous substances including iPOPs. Not only the workers in the recycling workshops are exposed to such toxicants but also the surrounding community dwellers might be adversely impacted because of prolonged exposure. In addition, atmospheric transport of iPOPs from such hotspots might impact the pristine sites.

Competition studies that focus on antitrust issues (e.g. market definition, market power) are typically conducted in markets where all firms are assumed to operate legally (competitors are tax-abiding entities, pay for all inputs used in their production process, have paid the proper government licenses to do so, etc.). We investigate competition issues in a market characterized by widespread piracy: subscription TV in Peru. Estimates suggest that 50% of subscription TV users in Peru (30% in Latin America) use an illegal provider. We make use of a unique dataset in which households provided crucial information regarding the (il) legality of their paid TV supplier. Using quantitative antitrust tools based on demand estimation techniques, we study the impact that the presence of the ‘informal’ sector has on competition. Our estimates suggest that the illegal operators constitute a close substitute for (and henceforth significantly constrain the pricing power of) legal operators. This finding can have important antitrust implications: the failure to account for piracy could lead to erroneous conclusions regarding market power measurement and the delineation of the relevant (antitrust) market. This may be particularly important in several industries (especially in the developing world) where the leading operator may be cataloged as “dominant” only in the absence of illegal providers.

Using Business Environment Enterprise Performance Surveys (BEEPS), this paper provides a multistage empirical analysis of product innovation and firm performance in transition economies (TEs). The Crepon-Duguet-Mairesse (CDM) model, a four-stage approach, is used to investigate the innovation-performance relationship. The multistage model allows studying the innovation activities of firms through multi-interrelated factors while controlling the issue of simultaneity and causality. The paper contributes to the research in this area by estimating the effect of innovation on performance through multistage equation modeling. It fills the gap in providing an understanding of factors that influence on product innovation - firm performance relationship in transition economies. This research is among the first to use product-only innovation to measure the impact of innovation on firms' performance. Findings indicate that product innovation has a positive impact on firm performance in transition economies, complemented by significant impact of specific control variables such as size, total labor cost, capital of the firm. Whereas age and competition from the informal sector, have a negative and significant effect on performance.

This paper investigates municipal solid waste management future scenarios of La Paz, developing big city of Bolivia, for improving the selective collection of recyclable materials. The objective of the paper is to suggest a multidimensional approach, both quantitative and qualitative, for planning sustainable waste management systems in areas with no data availability. The research assessed six different long-term management plans, considering all recycling settings feasible for La Paz. For that purpose, a multi-criteria decision analysis has been introduced, supported by environmental and financial impact assessment concerning transportation, final disposal, and material recovery. Results suggest that the inclusion of the informal sector could be the most feasible option from an economic and technological point of view. Moreover, the curbside collection of organic waste could be considered the best solution for reducing the global warming potential and for improving the useful life of the sanitary landfill. The approach introduced, as well as the combination of solutions evaluated, could be of interest for stakeholders of Latin America for reducing environmental impacts and introducing a new business. Though the multi-criteria decision analysis and the impact-assessment do not provide a dynamic view of future scenarios, their combination could offer a first integrated insight into the possible challenges and opportunities for developing a new municipal solid waste management system in developing cities, encouraging the circular economy and sustainable development.

The introduction of effective solid waste management strategies in developing countries should be considered for improving sustainability at global level. Many barriers should be overcome, concerning the introduction of environmental policies, effective investments, social inclusion and public awareness, which are significant issues in low-middle income countries. The Circular Economy could represent the answer for improving current solid waste management activities worldwide, since denote the principle of waste valorization and recycling for boosting developing economies. This paper is focused on this theme, analyzing main opportunities for improving the current state of solid waste management in developing big cities. The solid waste management of two countries are reviewed: Romania is the emerging country where Circular Economy is becoming a future objective due to economic aids and strength regulations which the European Union (EU) established for the nations forming parts the alliance; as a comparison, Bolivia is reported for evaluating main differences founded for developing recycling systems in a no-EU country. These two case studies could be of interest for highlighting main pros and cons of the participation into a wide organization like the EU for introducing in short terms Circular Economy principles. Moreover, a theoretical Circular Economy model for developing big cities in low-middle income countries is described within the study for effectively comparing which chances can spread for these countries as regard municipal solid waste exploitation. Despite the economic level, Romania and Bolivia are both facing with many solid waste management issues although in different magnitude. For the Romanian case study, it is visible how it cannot achieve the European goals for 2020 due the need of change in public recycling behavior. Bolivia, instead, represents the case where international aids and new investments are required, considering the informal sector into the formal management system as a real opportunity for improving local recycling rate. In conclusion, the comparison suggests how external supports led to implement the principles of the Circular Economy within a developing region. The model of Circular Economy proposed is recommended for developing big cities in order to advance a new form of safe employment, encouraging the activities that are still in action (i.e. informal sector) and boosting the principles of sustainable development.

This "geographic and thematic" issue of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology focuses on the traditional medicines in trade in Asia on the 30th anniversary of the 1988 Chiang-Mai Declaration, an output of an historic meeting organized by WHO, IUCN and WWF. The emphasis on the Asian countries that represent the highest volume and value of medicinal plants trade in the world is deliberate. Not only because of the scale and speed of changes in traditional medicines trade in Asia, but also to highlight the conservation and sustainable use issues being faced today. In 1988, few studies had been done on the informal sector trade or on medicinal plant value-chains and even fewer studies on cross-border trade in medicinal plants or fungi. At that time, e-commerce in Traditional and Complementary Medicine (T&CM), so common today, did not even exist. And no comparitive, repeat studies of traditional medicines markets had been done at all. Thirty years later, this special issue illustrates how the traditional medicines trade has grown and changed. Links between medicinal plant conservation, scarcity and price on one hand and quality, safety and adulteration on the other are better understood. E-commerce in T&CM has grown exponentially, due to 51% of the world's population having internet access by 2017. Yet despite global policy goals for conservation and sustainable use, the challenges facing medicinal plants conservation are greater than ever before. Consequently, the need for co-operation between the health-care and conservation sectors recognised in 1988 is even greater today. And this is recognised in WHO's 2014-2023 strategy for traditional medicines, which identifies the need to raise awareness about issues of biodiversity and conservation as an important strategic action (WHO, 2013). This Special Issue is a small contribution towards that goal.

Neoliberalism, rights to the city, and sustainable development are systems of ideas competing for the attention of policymakers and citizens worldwide. Analyzing Ghana's key urban reports, we produce a heat map of the intensity and fragility of ideas concerning the urban poor. We employ the Agbogbloshie informal settlement as a case study to explore conflicts among diverse planning goals: urban entrepreneurialism, environmental protection, formalization of parts of the informal economy, the reframing of citizenship, and settlement upgrading. Decongestion exercises, shack demolitions, and threats of relocation are strategies employed to restore order, but the settlement's regeneration is beset by transience and piecemeal actions. We introduce hypocrisy as a theoretical analytical perspective to call into question pro-poor urban planning interventions as a way of responding to continuous ambivalent planning measures and framing. Hypocrisy prompts an alternative focus on inconsistencies and contradictions in the planning system.

In this paper, we empirically investigate the relationship between informal sector employment and micro-level socio-demographic characteristics, political acts and attitudes, and individual norms. Using self-reported individual micro-level data from the World Values Survey for seven developing countries (China, Ecuador, Egypt, Mexico, Peru, South Africa and Yemen), our cross-country regressions and principal component analysis reveal that socio-demographic characteristics of individuals are strong predictors of their informal sector employment. Our estimations further document that individual preferences for an economically strong, interventionist and egalitarian state and confidence in state and political institutions are positively and significantly correlated with informal sector employment, whereas variables associated with confidence in free market institutions and support for competition are negatively and significantly correlated with informal sector employment. We also show that individuals who participate either actively or inactively in peaceful and lawful political processes are significantly less likely to work in the informal sector. Finally, we document that individual norms, such as religiosity and tax morale, are negatively correlated with informal sector employment. Throughout our analysis, instead of having to rely on ad-hoc informality categorizations of third parties, we base our measurement of informal sector employment directly on the self-evaluation of individuals, who have the best information on the degree of their informality.

This study examines the association between social preferences and recycling behavior in a developing country. A conceptual framework that modifies the impure altruism model with heterogeneous preferences and further incorporates the impure public good model is presented to study informal recycling behaviors. Based on survey data collected from 755 households in Hanoi, Vietnam, we find that the majority of sample households recycle all the recyclable materials they consume even though such recycling is not obligatory. Half the recycling households sell their recyclables to informal junk buyers, whereas the other half provide recyclables without monetary compensation. Our finding of voluntary recycling implies that a certain proportion of households have a positive marginal willingness to pay for an increase in the environmental public good. The results of the regression analyses show that recycling behavior is associated with altruism, as measured by a modified version of the self-report altruism scale. Among high-income households, recycling behavior is associated with inequality aversion, as elicited from a hypothetical game. These findings suggest that social preferences are important determinants of the private provision of public goods through the informal sector in a developing country.

The governance of agricultural value chains other than those that are export oriented has not been well understood. A case in point is agricultural value chains in India, which are characterized by the dominance of the informal sector, lack of standardization, and local policy dynamics. The complex interactions among actors in such value chains are not explained in the existing literature, which focuses on standardized, cross-border trade. The nature of coordination, control, and interdependence in local agricultural value chains is distinct, varies with the commodity, and is closer to a network system. A study of six commodity-specific sub-sectors, namely milk, rice, poultry meat, cotton, potato, and sugarcane, found that all consisted of relatively informal markets and were non-retailer-trader-driven. Governance of these value chains is often riddled with overlapping and contradictory roles of actors. However, with the increasing trend of markets being controlled by organized players, a shift towards a buyer-driven market is expected in the future. In such a context, policy-makers should safeguard the interests of smallholder producers.