This study investigated the impact of corruption on the persistence of informality across countries, offering new insights into the institutional dynamics that sustain informal economic activities. Drawing on firm-level data from World Bank Enterprise Surveys covering 159 countries, the analysis...

This paper investigated how parents' informal work relates to their children's academic performance. We interviewed the heads of households with 83 school-aged children in peri-urban Kathmandu to obtain information on parental occupation and child schooling. We also interviewed key informants...

This study presents a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis focused on female-led nanoenterprises in rural contexts, a marginal yet increasingly relevant category within enterprise research. Despite the growing attention to micro and small businesses, nanoenterprises-defined as...

Reaching universal health coverage is a central objective of social protection systems.Countries can choose a variety of mechanisms to secure the right to social health protection for all. This report focuses on those countries that have chosen a universal health insurance model. More...

INTRODUCTION 1 Irregular migration as a structural phenomenon PART I IRREGULAR MIGRATION AND EASTERN ENLARGEMENT 2 From irregular migrants to fellow Europeans: Changes in Romanian migratory flows 3 Illegality in everyday life: Polish workers in Dutch agriculture 4 The informal economy of paid...

The shadow economy (SE), which is hard to define and even harder to tackle, is posing a serious challenge in emerging countries. The study examines the impact of tariff (TAR) and non-tariff (NTAR) barriers on SE in N-11 countries. Additionally, it investigates the role of market signaling...

Substantial informal employment and excessive unpaid care burdens on women are characteristic of developing economies. This article takes a gender lens to examine the employment effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers in rural Viet Nam. Using 2021 Vietnamese labour force survey data with a...

India's rapid technological growth has significantly increased electronic consumption, resulting in a surge in electronic waste (e-waste) generation. This working paper examines the complexities of India's e-waste supply chain, focusing on key agents involved, such as collectors, dismantlers,...

This study investigated the relationship between the informal economy and sustainable development, focussing on how the shadow economy influenced the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) formulated in the 2030 Agenda in Europe. The research used data extracted from the...

Using an enhanced MIMIC method, this paper presents new estimates of the Informal Economy (IE) for 110 countries from 1997 to 2022. We address several limitations found in previous estimates of the IE, notably issues surrounding the missing values, time-invariant country characteristics, and...

Using an enhanced MIMIC method, this paper presents new and long-run estimates of the Informal Economy (IE) for 152 countries from 1997 to 2022. We address several limitations found in previous estimates of the IE, notably issues surrounding the missing values, time-invariant country...

Thailand has experienced a decline in income inequality coupled with unimpressive economic growth since the end of the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis. This paper uses the structuralist approach to understand how these concurrent economic phenomena have become deeply intertwined. We argue that...

This paper, originally designed to focus on discovering a suitable tax structure that befits an aspiring LMIE as it advances toward the UMIE status. On reflection, it becomes evident that it is hard to meaningfully deliberate on the composition of taxes without focussing in equal measure on the...

Large volumes of e-waste collected under formal schemes in high-income countries are still processed informally in developing ones, despite continuous policy efforts to reverse this trend. This paper shows that the persistence of informal e-waste processing is a consequence of how global waste...

This paper investigates the determinants and dynamics of labour demand and specifically informal labour in Egypt's manufacturing sector, using nationally representative firm-level data from the 2020/21 Egyptian Industrial Firm Behavior Survey. Applying ordinary least squares and fractional logit...

This paper critically reviews the empirical and structural literature on the effects of income taxation on informal economic activity. Although labor taxation has been widely studied in relation to labor market outcomes, evidence linking income taxes to informality remains fragmented and uneven...

Drawing on data from the Georgian Labour Force Survey (2021-2022), this paper provides a detailed statistical profile of informal employment in Georgia and discusses its key drivers. Around four workers out of ten were informally employed in Georgia in 2022. The large majority (69 per cent) of...

This paper examines how incorporating the informal economy influences the estimated benefits of international trade liberalization. Using a structural gravity framework, we quantify the impact of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) while explicitly accounting for the presence of shadow (informal)...

In this paper, we use panel data containing all EU27 countries from the 2010 to 2022 period to investigate the impact exhibited by the shadow economy on the level of NPLs. Based on a Panel GMM approach we reveal a negative connection, indicating that Countries with larger informal sectors often...