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The development of the world economy created its own footprint as a result of the phenomenon. 1/3 of that economic space is owned by the informal economy also referred to as the Local Economy or System D. The increasingly sophisticated and world-class phenomenon takes the place of the economic space left by the formal economy. The manipulation of the vast resources, the dynamic practices that take place in the legal and illegal dimensions, provide a guarantee of employment shadowed by survival. This paper traces the phenomenon occurring on the Sebatik Islands of Malaysia and Indonesia. The research approach is qualitative based on the interviews of key informants. The results suggest that this phenomenon occurs due to the fact that economic space and opportunities can be exploited for the sake of sustainability in meeting economic demands, especially marginalized groups at the border that ultimately establish a local integration of kinship relations beyond ethnicity, identity and ethnic boundaries itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the world economy created its own footprint as a result of the phenomenon. 1/3 of that space is owned by the informal economy also referred to as the Local Economy or System D. The connotation is to imagine a work phenomenon that is truly universal without a clear basis for labor. This increasingly sophisticated and world-class phenomenon takes the place of economic space left by the formal economy. The manipulation of the vast resources, the dynamic practices that take place in the legal and illegal dimensions, provide a guarantee of employment shadowed by survival. This paper traces the phenomenon occurring on the Sebatik Islands of Malaysia and Indonesia. The study method was qualitative based on the interviews of key informants. The results suggest that this phenomenon occurs due to the fact that economic space and opportunities can be exploited for the sake of sustainability in meeting economic demands, especially marginalized groups at the border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Marked in part by a narrow river, the border between the neighbouring provinces of Loei in Thailand and Sayaboury in the Lao PDR appears to be porous and unregulated. While a Friendship Bridge regulates large-scale international trade, an extensive amount of informal, small-scale trade continues to flow across smaller checkpoints and other parts of the river. Trade along these sites is not only highly organised, most of it also happens under the gaze of border officials. This article examines the material and power exchanges that occur at local checkpoints between the different actors involved in the facilitation and restriction of trade. Between Loei and Sayaboury, trade is regulated according to a spectrum of licitness that is constantly negotiated and renegotiated between traders and officials. Negotiations rely on the social relations between these actors and involve practices of gift-giving and bribery, which blur the boundaries between reciprocity and corruption. By focusing on the interactions between state and non-state actors, this article sheds light on the way the informal economy is configured by checkpoint politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory article revisits cross-border shadow exchanges in a comparative perspective and reflects on their theoretical implications. It explores the diversities and complexities of shadow operations and critically examines the concept of informality that is commonly used to describe such non-state-sanctioned practices. It further underlines the key role played by checkpoint politics in border governance. Border checkpoints serve both as a state institution in regulating border crossings as well as a political site where material and power exchanges among state and non-state actors are negotiated. Such negotiation of selective passage through state-controlled gateways is often predicated upon the skilful manipulation of time and space by experienced traders and brokers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suitcase trade is a common activity along state borders in Asia. Existing scholarship has often viewed such suitcase trade as locally embedded activities characterised by informality. This article contends that this perception underestimates the diversity and complexity of suitcase trade. This is illustrated with a case study of the Pearl River Delta region of southern China, where thousands of suitcase traders carry goods across the borders between mainland China and its two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao. Several patterns of operation run in parallel, ranging from petty traders working alone to highly-organised group operators. While each individual transaction is small scale and based on informal networks, the entire chain of operations is run by syndicates that are highly organised, commercial, with well-defined divisions of labour, and on a large scale. We describe such a combination of organisational competence and informal networks as "organised informality." The concept allows us to expand the analytical horizon to cover those cross-border exchanges that incorporate modern commercial practices in otherwise non-formal settings. It also bridges the oft-criticised dichotomies of formal-informal and licit-illicit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides evidence that foreign workers reduce firms' trade costs and thus increase the probability that firms export. This informs both the literature on trade costs and the microeconomic literature on firms' export behaviour. We identify the nationality of each worker in a large sample of German establishments and relate this to the exporting behaviour of these establishments. We allow for the possible endogeneity of an establishment's workforce by instrumenting the share of foreign workers with the regional distribution of foreign workers in the wider labour market. We find a significant effect of worker nationality on exporting which is not driven by the industrial, occupational or locational concentration of migrants. The effect is much stronger for senior occupations, who are more likely to have a role in exporting decisions by the establishment. The relationship is also stronger when we consider exports to particular regions and workers from these regions, consistent with a gravity model in which trade flows from country i to j are a function of migrants from j in i. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Situated on the north-eastern coast of Morocco, Melilla is a fenced territory of 12 square kilometres under Spanish sovereignty since 1497. Over the course of the twentieth century, and particularly after Spain's incorporation into the European Community (1986), Melilla's fiscal and geo-political status has triggered the growth of a black market economy built on a large variety of cross-border activities, most commonly the smuggling of basic commodities and luxury goods. This paper examines the connections between different forms of exchange linking the Iberian Peninsula to the Spanish enclave of Melilla, and Melilla to the neighbouring Moroccan province of Nador. Different forms of exchange rely on one another – from the family links on which smuggling networks are built, to the migratory tradition which connects Nador to Spain and to a number of European capitals and which has influenced patterns of exchange across the border in unexpected ways. In particular, this paper explores how the assimilation on the part of Nadori emigrants of Western consumption practices, or rather, of what emigrants identify as Western consumption practices, has generated, in Nador, a growing demand for certain goods which are now seen as objects of prestige and markers of status. This demand, in turn, has shaped smuggling practices. It is argued that, in the Melillan context, commodity exchange across the border cannot be properly understood without considering the processes by which certain ideas and conceptions have been appropriated and transformed through long-standing migratory practices linking the Moroccan Eastern Rif to the Iberian Peninsula and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Using small-scale cross-border trade and smuggling as an example of an informal practice carried out in many post-socialist countries, the purpose of this paper is to explore which different meanings this activity possesses for the people being involved in it and in how far small-scale cross-border trade is being accepted and looked at by society. The authors hope to show the different connections between informal and formal activities and specificities of localities which people in the mentioned countries deploy when trying to secure their livelihood. Design/methodology/approach – The authors used a qualitative empirical research including group discussions with small-scale traders and small entrepreneurs, expert interviews with representatives of the border authorities and systematic observations at border crossing points and open-air markets at the Finnish-Russian, Polish-Ukrainian, Polish-Belarusian and Ukrainina-Romanian borders. Findings – The paper provides empirical insights about why people carry out smuggling and small-scale trade and how these informal activities are perceived in the local environment. It suggests that informal economic cross-border activities are often highly legitimized despite their illegal character. The border creates certain extra opportunities as it enables arbitrage dealings. Rather as a side effect though, the Schengen visa regime has evoked a decreasing profit margin of transborder economic activities. Therefore, it remains unclear whether the Eastern external EU border will serve as an informal economic resource in the future. Originality/value – Thanks to a multisited qualitative approach to a very sensitive research topic, the paper allows empirical insights into meanings and uses of smuggling and cross-border small-scale trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the cross-border economic interactions between people in Blagoveshensk, Russia and Heihe, China, and the tension between the "translocality" developing at the border and efforts of the Russian government to strengthen the nation-state. The informal and translocal nature of this Russian-Chinese border economy is discussed, finding that the intertwined economic life of the two cities has developed independently of the hierarchical Russian social system. Other topics discussed include entrepreneurship and transnationalism.