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The study examines the consequences of the COVID‐19 pandemic‐induced lockdown on the socio‐economic status of 212 female migrant workers employed in the informal sector, originating from four underprivileged districts of West Bengal, India. The study assesses the changes in their scope of employment, financial instability, and the level of violence experienced within households and workplaces in the pre‐pandemic and post‐lockdown phases. We apply the binary logistic regression to identify factors influencing their low employment scope, the t‐test to observe changes in their income as a consequence of the pandemic, and the Wilcoxon signed‐rank test alongside effect size analysis to detect any rise in experiences of violence and exploitation against women. The findings suggest a notable decrease in their employment scope due to the absence of previous jobs, low wages, insecure workplaces, and family constraints; a decline in earnings; and an increased incidence of violence against them. The research suggests designing reforms to improve the current situation of female migrants, who represent one of the most marginalized sections of society. Formalizing the labor market and ensuring proper registration of these women would enable them to gain access to social security benefits, pension schemes, and relief packages that are vital for their well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent prevalence of digital currencies has challenged policymakers as they try to control the supply of money and rein in clandestine activities. Corruption and shadow economy are widely prevalent illegal/unobserved activities that have been hard to eliminate worldwide. These longstanding and entrenched activities have possibly found a new avenue to thrive and evade detection/punishment. So disentangling the nexus between corruption, shadow economy, and digital currencies is important. Using recent cross‐country data, this paper analyzes the interrelationships between corruption, shadow economy, and cryptocurrencies. We argue that a large underground sector in a nation provides a mechanism through which corrupt government officials use cryptocurrencies to conceal their unauthorized earnings. Employing formal mediation analysis, our results show that the positive nexus between corruption and cryptocurrency adoption is mediated by the shadow sector. Quantitatively speaking, three‐fourths of the correlation between corruption and cryptocurrency usage is mediated by the shadow economy. The primary implication of our findings is that effective monitoring of cryptocurrencies should pay attention to policies to control both corruption and the shadow economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We use an overlapping generations model to study the challenge in developing countries with a large informal sector and aging population. We use Thailand as a case study and incorporate its labor market structure and its public pension system into the calibrated model. Unlike developed countries, workers in developing countries commonly transit from the formal sector to the informal sector, which can be in the early stage of their working life. This labor market feature crucially limits the coverage of the contributory social security (SS) system. We find that 66% of Thai elderly (aged 60 or over) are ineligible for SS annuity benefits because of an insufficient number of years paying into the SS fund. In addition, we use our model to evaluate two schemes to raise the existing universal basic pension income to the poverty line, namely, uniform benefits and pension‐tested benefits. We find that pension‐testing effectively improves the targeting efficiency, and nontrivially lowers the cost of the basic pension income program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing carbon emissions is critical to achieving a carbon‐neutral world according to the Glasgow Climate Pact, but production, and thus carbon emissions, must continue to meet the needs of the world's growing population. Minimizing carbon emissions per production, that is, increasing carbon efficiency is one way to support the Sustainable Development Goals. Therefore, studying the determinants of carbon efficiency for China, the largest global polluter, is important for zero carbon goals. To this end, this study examines the effects of the shadow economy, globalization, trade openness and urbanization on carbon efficiency using novel dynamic autoregressive‐distributed lag simulations for China during 1990–2018. The empirical results illustrate that (i) the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis is not valid; (ii) Shadow economy, trade openness and urbanization reduce carbon efficiency and (iii) Globalization enhances carbon efficiency. Based on these results, it is suggested that the Chinese government should combat the shadow economy to increase carbon efficiency, regulate unplanned and polluting urbanization in a green manner, reduce carbon intensity in foreign trade, and benefit from environmental technologies provided by globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of a rise in oil prices on the wages of workers in the unorganized sector of a developing economy. The model economy is comprised of two non‐traded transport sectors, formal and informal, along with other sectors. The main results that we obtain are as follows. The informal transport sector contracts when fuel price rises and lowers the real income of the informal workers. The per‐unit return to land rises, and the factor readjustments even raise the output of other sectors in the economy. We also show why inclusion of non‐passenger transport services does not alter the main outcomes of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We extend the theory of optimal redistributive taxation to economies with an informal sector. In particular, in our model, workers can supply labor simultaneously to the formal and the informal sectors, which we call moonlighting. The optimal tax formula contains two novel terms capturing informality responses on an intensive and an extensive margin. Both terms decrease the optimal tax rates. We estimate the model with Colombian data and find that informality strongly reduces tax rates at all income levels. The possibility to migrate to entirely informal employment restricts tax rates at low and medium income levels, while the possibility of moonlighting is relevant at higher earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is the first to calculate the size and development of the informal/shadow economies in the agricultural sector for 15 "old" EU countries over 1996–2019. The multiple indicators multiple causes model was used for the estimation of levels and development of informal economies of these countries. The results show higher levels of informal economies in agriculture compared with those in the overall economies. One main contributing factor to this development was a change in the subsidization regime, namely, decoupling Common Agricultural Policy payments from quantities of products produced, introduced in 2003. The effects of taxation, share of imports, and factor income in agriculture are also important for the size of the informal agricultural economy. Finally, we disaggregate the informal work into subcategories, such as self‐employed, family and nonfamily, and household work. The biggest potential for the development of informal economy comes from taxation, regulation, and self‐employment, followed by family work and unreported employment. [EconLit Citations: Q11, Q14, Q19]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines convergence among cross‐country shadow economies. Using the Phillips‐Sul (2007, 2009) club convergence approach and data for over 150 countries from 1991 to 2017, the results show evidence against absolute convergence for all shadow economies; however, we find evidence of multiple convergence clubs. In particular, we find evidence for seven distinct convergence clubs and six divergent shadow economies. Each club is characterised by an increasingly larger shadow economy with the countries in club 1 having the largest shadow economy and those in club 7 having the smallest shadow economy. Using a two‐way fixed effects approach, we also find that the determinants of the shadow economy are somewhat conditional on the convergence club. The existence of multiple equilibria suggests that policy makers in their attempt to combat the shadow economy would benefit by considering the different transitional paths associated with the different convergence clubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labour markets in sub‐Saharan Africa are characterized by a gendered division between formal and informal sectors. This article argues that this division originates from a rationality introduced by racist and gendered colonial legal segmentation, produced by a variety of legal regimes in and beyond employment law. Labour market segmentation in postcolonial settings cannot be understood or overcome without analysing the specific colonial institutional origins of the commodification of labour. In sub‐Saharan Africa, the "colonial exploitative legal employment standard" that commodified labour focused on black African male employees for European employers, excluding or marginalizing women and domestic labour relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue aims to enrich the discussion on individual employment re‐regulation by introducing the concept of legal segmentation from a global perspective and distinguishing between the standard‐setting, privileging and equalizing functions of employment law. This introductory article draws on a new database created by the authors that allows countries worldwide to be clustered into types of legal segmentation. It presents the authors' methodology and initial findings, which are contrasted with the regional and thematic studies in this Special Issue. Together, these contributions provide policy proposals to support the creation and enforcement of inclusive rules protecting all working people worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies a qualitative approach to the legal segmentation analysis developed by Dingeldey et al. (2021), considering exclusion from, and hierarchies of, worker protection. Examining the cases of China, India, Malaysia and Viet Nam, the author finds that several factors distinguish these countries from those in the global North and produce distinct labour market outcomes, namely: in terms of the relative size of the workforce operating outside the effective coverage of employment regulation; legal terminology that is not readily translated into Western languages; and legal history, especially as regards the mismatch between statutory frameworks and the labour market resulting from colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how the regulative functions of labour law have been developed within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and seeks to identify instances of legal segmentation. The authors provide an overview of the demographic nature of the informal economies in SADC Member States, drawing the conclusion that the labour law mechanisms employed in the region substantially contribute to the legal segmentation of the regional economies. This has occurred despite the constitutionalization of labour law in the SADC region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using rich administrative and household survey data spanning 34 years from 1985 to 2018, we document a series of new facts on earnings inequality and dynamics in a developing country with a large informal sector: Brazil. Since the mid-1990s, both inequality and volatility of earnings have declined significantly in Brazil's formal sector. Higher-order moments of the distribution of earnings changes show cyclical movements in Brazil that are similar to those in developed countries like theUS. Relative to the formal sector, the informal sector is associated with a significant earnings penalty and higher earnings volatility for identical workers. Earnings changes of workers who switch from formal to informal (from informal to formal) employment are relatively negative (positive) and large in magnitude, dispersed, negatively (positively) skewed, and less leptokurtic. Our results suggest that informal employment is an imperfect insurance mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the association between the informal economy and the adoption of central bank digital currency (CBDC) by end users, namely households and businesses. Our findings suggest that CBDC may not be widely accepted by end users in the presence of a sizable informal economy in which cash is the primary method of payment. CBDC can decrease informality, but this effect becomes weaker in countries with larger informal economies. Tax reduction and CBDC interest rates can be useful tools to promote the adoption and effectiveness of CBDC, leading to a reallocation effect between formal and informal sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of immigration and immigration amnesties on the shadow economy. We make use of an array of Italian immigration data and original shadow economy estimates for the years 1996–2006, comprising a panel of local‐level aggregate statistical information, and a microlevel survey of representative households. We find a robust and positive relationship between the presence of immigrants and the unobserved economic activity at the local level. Nevertheless, the impact of immigration on the Italian unofficial economy is relatively small in magnitude. We also exploit the discontinuity created by the implementation of the 2002 immigration amnesty, which increased the stock of documented migrants by almost 50%. According to our results, the Italian 2002 immigration policy only slightly weakens the link between immigration and the extent of the unobserved economic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the determinants of the shadow economy by employing Bayesian Model Averaging technique, which allows taking into account model uncertainty. Having estimated millions of combinations of models, the study revealed that while higher GDP growth rate, trade openness, and better institutional quality lead to the reduction of the informal sector, higher rate of unemployment, complicated regulations, and the large size of government are associated with a greater size of the shadow economy. Lessening bureaucratic complexity by eliminating burdensome regulations could help to reduce both wasteful spending of government on operating these regulations and the size of the underground economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic triggered a health, economic and care crisis affecting all workers, including those in the informal economy. This article uses data from the first round of a mixed‐methods longitudinal study conducted in June/July 2020 by Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing in partnership with informal workers' organizations in 12 cities. It assesses the impacts of the multidimensional crisis on care responsibilities and the resulting effects on livelihoods and food security. A gendered analysis of paid work and unpaid care work sheds light on the unique features of the impacts of the current "pandemic recession" on the world's informal labour force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The informal business sector has made enormous contributions to Nigeria's economic growth and development, but this sector is not given the necessary attention to transforming these businesses toward sustainability. This study explores the depth of informal business sector practices in Nigeria. It underscores the inputs of stakeholders in the transformation of businesses in the Nigerian informal sector to increase tax remittances and employment generation for job security in the Nigerian economy. Also, it underpins value chain performances to transform the informal sector and rescue it from liquidation through voluntary company arrangements, administration, merger, takeover, and acquisition schemes. The study adopts a conceptual review. The research relies on extant literature relating to the antecedence of informal business sector activities in Nigeria. It relies on reports from tertiary data sources such as academic articles, books, newspapers, the Internet, and website sources. It further explores the views of researchers, covering the informal sector development and the support of the provisions of the social services in Nigeria. There is the absence of a model for the transformation and sustainability of the informal sector enterprises in Nigeria. This study recommends a model approach to address informal sector enterprises' issues and challenges necessary to transform the businesses into a formal status while supporting their sustainability and resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Colin C. Williams's book I The Informal Economy i (hereafter I IE i ) is a succinct summary of decades of research on socially accepted economic activity at the fringes of the legally sanctioned and protected formal economy. Williams ( I IE i , p. 6) defines the informal economy as 'socially legitimate paid activity that is legal in all respects other than that it is not declared to, hidden from, or unregistered with, the authorities for tax, social security and/or labour law purposes when it should be declared'. The primary claim of the book is that while the net effect of the informal economy is deleterious ( I IE i , p. 13) - in particular, for informal workers who do not benefit from formal labour standards - simply eradicating the informal economy is neither practical nor desirable ( I IE i , pp. 93-5). [Extracted from the article]

This paper examines the absorption of foreign aid in the presence of formal and informal production. Calibrating a two‐sector open economy model to 67 aid‐recipient countries for 1990–2019, we show that an increase in foreign aid drives resources into the informal sector, and away from the formal sector. With untied aid, the expansion of the informal sector can lead to an economic contraction through the Dutch Disease effect. An economic expansion with an increase in the share of formal production can be attained by re‐allocating existing aid to public investment rather than an increase in the aggregate level of aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the role played by migrants in the informal economy in the emblematic tourist sites of a Global North metropolis, paying heed to their interactions with tourists. It investigates the acceptability of the migrants' presence by probing the distance or proximity of tourists to migrant vendors. Our key hypothesis is that these subaltern assert a certain right to the city by mastering interpersonal distances with others and changing the dominant meaning attached to major tourist sites. This research draws on in‐depth fieldwork carried out in four of Paris's most famous attractions: the Eiffel Tower, Notre‐Dame, Montmartre, and the Louvre. It is based on ethnographic observations, 75 interviews in five languages with tourists, and 29 interviews with actors in the informal economy, often street vendors. Analyzing this research material has allowed us to conceptualize a wide range of strategies by which migrants negotiate their place in the city. We highlight three modalities of proxemic relationships between tourists and migrants that shape the multi‐scalar emotional experiences of these sites. These complex (im)possible proximities help us better grasp how a translocal and progressive sense of place is at stake, in the very heart of a global city. Key Messages: The handling of interpersonal distances by migrants is a condition by which they exert their right to the city.The micro‐geographic approach to interpersonal proximity at tourist sites makes it possible to highlight original migrants' ways of being in the city.The acceptability of migrant street vendors in these sites mixes emotions, trade, exoticism, and charity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern slavery is used to describe forms of coercive labor exploitation that affect more than 40 million persons globally. Such practices are difficult to identify given they exist in the informal economy, and involve vulnerable individuals. Addressing modern slavery by organizations requires awareness of its context and complexities. While corporations have increasingly sought to manage modern slavery risk in their supply chains, their understanding of what modern slavery is and what should be managed remains limited. We argue a key problem with firms' efforts to manage modern slavery risk is that it is a psychologically distant concept for them. We apply construal level theory to explore how organizations' psychological distance from modern slavery risk affects their management of risk. We interviewed purchasing executives at 41 global organizations in Australia, Finland, and the U.S and identified four approaches to managing modern slavery risk at different levels of psychological distance. We also identified that conflicts between organizations' approaches to risk and what they identify in their operating environment, precedes important construal shifts that help to improve organizational understanding of labor‐related risk. We highlight ways that organizations' understanding of modern slavery risk plays a role in their governance of such risk in supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In low‐ and middle‐income countries, almost three‐fourths of women in the labour force lack maternity protection. In the Philippines, current laws do not guarantee paid maternity leave to workers in the informal economy. A non‐contributory maternity cash transfer to informal sector workers could be used to promote social equity and economic productivity and could provide health benefits by helping mothers meet their breastfeeding goals. The objective of the study is to provide a realistic cost estimate and to assess the financial feasibility of implementing a publicly financed, non‐contributory maternity cash transfer programme to the informal sector in the Philippines. Using a costing framework developed in Mexico, the study estimated the annual cost of a maternity cash transfer programme. The methodology estimated the unit cost of the programme, the incremental coverage of maternity leave and expected number of enrollees. Different unit and incremental costs assumptions were used to provide a range of scenarios. Administrative costs for running the programme were included in the analysis. The annual financing need of implementing maternity cash transfer programme in the Philippines ranges from a minimum scenario of USD42 million (14‐week maternity cash transfer) to a more ideal scenario of USD309 million (26‐week maternity cash transfer). The latter is financially feasible as it is equivalent to less than 0.1% of the country's gross domestic product substantially lower than the share cost of not breastfeeding (0.7%). The annual cost of the programme is only 10% of the total cost of the largest conditional cash transfer programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to the majority of studies that have treated informal workers as a single homogeneous group, this article accounts for the possibility of "winners" and "losers" among informal workers. Applying unconditional quantile regressions to data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey, the authors are able to estimate the formal–informal wage gaps for different segments of the earnings distribution. Although the evidence confirms the existence of a substantial earnings penalty for many informal workers, there is also a group who earn roughly similar incomes to formal workers. The findings are consistent with Fields's (1990 and 2005) model of heterogeneous informal employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the impact of adopting a value‐added tax (VAT) on the size of the informal sector across different activities. Under VAT, formal traders desire to purchase their inputs from formal suppliers for a deduction in their tax bill. I model this 'self‐enforcement' feature of VAT on an input–output economy and quantify it among different activities using a forward linkage index. The administration can reduce the size of the informal economy by reallocating the audits to activities with higher backward linkages and final consumption. Empirical evidence from the Indian services sector justifies the theoretical results and shows a significant increase in the tax compliance of forwardly linked activities following the VAT adoption in 2003. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Reserve Bank of Australia is the sole issuer and redeemer of Australian banknotes, but between issuance and destruction there is little information about where banknotes go or what they are used for. We estimate the whereabouts and uses of Australian banknotes, and find that 15–35 per cent are used to facilitate legitimate transactions, 4–7 per cent are used for transactions in the shadow economy, while the remainder are non‐transactional. The vast majority of non‐transactional banknotes are likely to be hoarded, and we estimate that 5–10 per cent of outstanding banknotes are lost or collected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under a centrally planned system, China made significant achievements in gender equality. Half a century later, China has joined the ranks of upper‐middle‐income countries, and decades of rapid growth have accompanied major structural changes in the economy. We assess the evolution of women's economic opportunities during the period, focusing on labour force participation, occupational segregation, leadership in business, and the gender wage gap, as well as informal sector employment and migration. We undertake a review of existing research and conduct new empirical analysis using a combination of data sources, including four waves of Chinese population census data through 2010, and province‐level migration data. We focus especially on migrant women, a group typically excluded from similar studies. Although investments in human capital have advanced prospects for better‐paid jobs for women, we find that rapid economic growth has not alleviated discrimination against women rooted in cultural and social norms and that the implementation of existing laws designed to protect and support women needs to improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overview: World growth still seen at just 2.5% in 2020 ▀ Although recent developments suggest that the risks of an escalation in US‐China trade tensions have eased, we doubt this will deliver a significant boost to the global economy. We still expect world GDP growth of just 2.5% this year, the weakest since the global financial crisis, after an estimated 2.6% in 2019. But the risks around the forecast now seem less skewed to the downside.▀ While our view remains that global GDP growth is likely to have softened further around the turn of the year, the decline remains gradual. And latest survey‐based measures of activity and sentiment show tentative signs that prospects are beginning to improve, consistent with our long‐standing view that the low point for global growth will be in Q1 2020.▀ Just as importantly, the likelihood of the US and China formally signing off a phase one trade deal in mid‐January has reduced the chances of a further flare‐up in trade tensions between the two economies. However, this has to some degree been offset by the troubling events recently unfolding between the US and Iran.▀ We remain sceptical that the global economy is set for a major growth boost. Any healing in US‐China relations may quickly be unwound and a full reversal of the tariffs already implemented remains a distant prospect. Furthermore, some of the associated growth boost is likely to be offset by less policy support. As a result, we have raised our 2020 GDP growth by just 0.1pp in the US but by a more significant 0.3pp in China.▀ Meanwhile, although the ongoing and broad‐based monetary policy loosening in both AEs and EMs should start to feed through to growth this year, we doubt this will be a game‐changer. Not only is policy loosening at a global level set to be fairly muted, limited spare capacity, the rising stock of global debt and elevated asset prices are likely to reduce the positive impulse from policymakers' actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distance between small firms and their lenders is increasing, and they are communicating in more impersonal ways. After documenting these systematic changes, we demonstrate they do not arise from small firms locating differently, consolidation in the banking industry, or biases in the sample. Instead, improvements in lender productivity appear to explain our findings. We also find distant firms no longer have to be the highest quality credits, indicating they have greater access to credit. The evidence indicates there has been substantial development of the financial sector, even in areas such as small business lending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the effects of education on wage inequality in the informal sector in Cameroon. The author uses quantile regression on data from the Second survey on employment and the informal sector in Cameroon (EESI 2) of 2010. The results indicate that both wages and wage inequality increase with education in the informal sector, with tertiary education creating greatest inequality. These findings point to a number of policy recommendations for a transition to formality, such as the creation of more jobs for a skilled workforce, the development of sites adapted to informal sector activities and the creation of more vocational schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our paper we try to combine the theories explaining the prevalence of informal work, using a regional approach. Reviewing the literature, we observe that, there is no evidence to confirm that the relationships that occur in cross‐country comparisons remain significant when we use regional data and analyse cross‐regional variations. Our general question is therefore whether there is simply more informal work in less‐developed regions, as the modernization theory asserts. Our analysis concludes that there is limited correlation between the prevalence of informal work and a region's level of development, whereas there is a significant positive autocorrelation between the extent of informal work in the analysed voivodships in Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the effect of bank deregulation on small business. As bank structure restrictions relax there is a tendency for larger banks to expand, partly through the acquisition of smaller banking institutions. These mergers naturally reduce the number of independent banking organizations in states where such acquisitions occur. In the short term it is possible that the consolidations will impose additional costs on some existing customers. Previous research suggests that variations in the banking structure primarily affect the credit conditions of small business. Increased market concentration can lead to higher loan rates for smaller firms.

There exists considerable literature on the efficiency of foreign exchange markets, with most of the empirical work supporting the hypothesis that the foreign exchange markets are weak form efficient. In some countries, however, trading in foreign currencies takes place in black markets which are the result of restrictions placed on the foreign sector. The importance of these markets in sustaining the illegal import and export of goods and assets, as well as illegal capital flows, has been growing in the past few years. In this paper, market efficiency tests are performed on the black market exchange rates in India, Taiwan, and South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the actual role of cigarettes as currency in the German economy at the end of World War II, as opposed to popular mythology surrounding the events. Details are given describing the institution of a limited barter economy alongside the black market and traditional system and the presence of cigarettes as a primary commodity within them. Connections between the restrictions of Reichmark-American dollar exchanges are analyzed. Conclusions are offered suggesting that while cigarettes did serve in a monetary capacity, it was a limited one.

This article examines the impact of economic freedom on the shadow economy. Using panel data on over 100 countries from 2000 to 2015, we find that economic freedom is effective at reducing the spread of the shadow economy. Moreover, after disaggregating economic freedom into its five main components, the results suggest that all aspects of economic freedom significantly mitigate shadow activities with freedom from regulation exhibiting the largest impact. Overall, these findings are robust after accounting for alternate measures of the shadow economy, simultaneity, outliers, and nonlinearities. Thus, countries aiming to combat the spread of shadow activities would benefit from policies that support economic freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the impact of institutional quality on formal entrepreneurial activity has been well documented in the literature, whether and to what extent corruption influences entrepreneurship in the informal sector is less forthcoming. In this article, we analyze the effect of corruption on entrepreneurship in the formal and informal sectors. Using unique cross‐country data on formal and informal entrepreneurship, we find that corruption deters entrepreneurship in the formal sector and promotes informal entrepreneurship. These results remain robust even after conducting a series of sensitivity analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study developed and tested an initial tool for the systematic observation of secondary units at the neighbourhood scale by utilizing an inventory checklist method inspired by studies in the fields of health geography and criminology. Single-family dwellings with secondary units were found to have one or more of 18 visual characteristics as outlined in the proposed tool. In the neighbourhoods where the tool was applied it was found that, within the Canadian context, urban neighbourhoods contain a higher proportion and density of secondary units than newer, suburban areas. Indicators that emerged as most prevalent included more than one mailbox per dwelling, unit numbers on single-family dwellings, more than one electric meter, and lawns converted for parking of multiple vehicles. Local and regional variations in housing stock characteristics and local housing markets make the standardization of such a tool problematic. However, this method does present a place-based approach that provides a subtle means of understanding the unique attributes, and distribution, of this type of housing at a scale relevant to municipal planning decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mapping linkages between the formal and informal sectors is a key area of study in the informal markets literature, particularly in research that focuses on low-income economic actors in the global south. This paper extends that literature both spatially and sociologically by exploring an instance of market informality practiced by middle-class households in the global north, specifically the market in unauthorized secondary suite rentals in Vancouver. Secondary suites (also known as accessory dwelling units) are self-contained apartments typically built by retrofitting the basement, garage, or attic of a house-in some cases without adhering to existing regulations. As in other cities, homeowners in Vancouver often rent out these apartments regardless of the unit's legal status. Through an analysis of more than 30 interviews conducted with homeowner-landlords of unauthorized secondary suites in the city, a mapping of formal-informal linkages in this rental housing submarket is undertaken. This local-level mapping exercise also examines how municipal enforcement policy and federal housing and taxation policy relate to these linkages, highlighting contradictions within and between municipal, provincial, and federal scales of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study measures the informal economy and shortages of consumer goods in the Soviet republics from 1965 to 1989 to estimate the relationships between these two variables. Using estimation methods, including a fixed-effect model and the instrumental variable approach, we find that the informal economy and shortages reinforced each other. Results indicate that the Soviet central planning system was difficult to sustain. Substantial heterogeneities across the Soviet republics exist not only in the extent of the informal economy and shortages, but also in the associations between the two variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a general equilibrium model of a developing economy with a capital intensive formal sector and a large informal sector with sector-specific capital to analyse the effects of investments on the sectoral returns to capital, sectoral wage rates, and composition of output and employment. Beginning with capital market disequilibrium (unequal sectoral rates of return) and labour market distortion (formal-informal wage gap), the model traces the evolution of the economy till capital market equilibrium is attained. The investments in the formal sector equalise the wages (a 'turning point' in growth à la Lewis) and reduces the size of the informal sector. The sectoral rates of returns equalise only if there is no factor intensity reversal, otherwise the economy specialises in the production of formal goods. The investments in the informal sector equalise the rates of return, do not affect the size of the formal sector and finally, a formal-informal wage gap persists provided factor intensities are not reversed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines two social enterprises and 25+ informal economy micro-entrepreneurs in Kenya who utilize waste materials to generate income, considered through the conceptual lens of bricolage. Waste materials can all be considered as sources of free or discounted materials that in resource-constrained and poor communities might be leveraged to generate income in the absence of employment. This paper explores three key themes that emerge from the research findings, namely the various strategic dimensions of the cases, the networks and social capital they leverage and how these livelihood models relate to various dimensions of bricolage such as improvisation, making do and the process of 'fiddling' or recombining resources. The findings also suggest that differing waste livelihoods have different rates of return, or profitability, and differing input requirements of capital, skills and knowledge. The paper also stresses the role of boundary spanning organizations such as NGOs and hybrid/social enterprises. © 2016 The Authors. Business Strategy and the Environment published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal work, defined as work performed without a formal contract, lowers productivity, reduces tax revenue and hampers economic growth. Reducing informal work is a policy objective in developed and developing countries alike. Yet, particularly since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, most socio-economic policy reforms across Europe have reduced the generosity of unemployment benefit schemes and deregulated employment protection. The authors argue that, while such reforms may have contributed to reducing unemployment, they might also have increased the incidence of informal work. Using European Social Survey data for 2004-12, they find that labour protection is effective in reducing informal wage employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the growing literature on colonial legacies influencing long-term development. It focuses on Botswana, a case where the post-independence diamond-led economy has been considered an economic success story, despite its high levels of inequality. Here it is argued that this pathway of rapid resource-driven growth combined with increasing socio-economic inequality had already started during the time of the colonial cattle economy, and that this older case is equally relevant for understanding long-term growth-inequality trends in Botswana and other natural-resource-dependent economies. Six social tables, covering the period 1921 to 1974, are constructed using colonial archives, government statistics, and anthropological records. Based on the social tables, income inequality is estimated in the colonial and early post-independence eras, capturing both the formal and informal sectors of the economy. The article demonstrates how the creation of a cattle export sector in the 1930s brought new opportunities to access export incomes, and how this led to a polarization in cattle holdings and increasing income inequalities. Further, with the expansion of colonial administration, government wages forged ahead, increasing income inequality and causing a growing income divide between public and private formal employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In this paper we build an endogenous growth model in which the informal economy is subject to a cash-in-advance constraint along with physical capital accumulation and consumption. In this setting, we find that inflation generally adversely affects long-run growth. However; this effect strongly interacts with the size of the informal economy. Specifically, the negative effect becomes milder (and can even be positive) under the presence of a large informal economy. Moreover, using an annual cross-country panel data set of 161 countries over the period 1950-2010 we also provide some empirical support for the mechanism of our theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The standard view suggests that removing barriers to entry and improving judicial enforcement reduces informality and boosts investment and growth. However, a general equilibrium approach shows that this conclusion may hold to a lesser extent in countries with a constrained supply of funds because of, for example, a more concentrated banking sector or lower financial openness. When the formal sector grows larger in those countries, more entrepreneurs become creditworthy, but the higher pressure on the credit market limits further capital accumulation. We show empirical evidence consistent with these predictions. ( JEL O16, O43, E26) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]