This study uncovers a gender labor productivity gap among informal firms in 14 developing economies. The results show that labor productivity is approximately 15.2 percent (or 0.165 log point) lower among women-owned than men-owned informal firms. Decomposition techniques reveal several factors...

This paper estimates spatial wage curves for formal and informal workers in Turkey using individual level data from the Turkish Household Labor Force Survey (THLFS) provided by TURKSTAT for the period 2008-2014. Unlike previous studies on wage curves for formal and informal workers, we extend...

This paper theoretically investigates how labor-market tightness affects market outcomes if firms use informal and self-enforcing agreements to motivate workers. We characterize profit-maximizing equilibria and derive the following results. First, an increase in the supply of homogenous workers...

This paper seeks to identify the differentiated impacts of the crisis on specific groups of informal workers. The analysis draws on official nationally representative labour force surveys collected quarterly by South Africa's national statistical agency (Statistics South Africa). Based on an...

This paper presents findings from two rounds (2020 and 2021) of a study on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on informal workers in 11 cities across five regions of the world (Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and North America). The study, carried out by the WIEGO network in...

Low- and middle-income countries face a trade-off between raising tax revenue to strengthen social protection and creating incentives for the population to enter formal employment. However, empirical evidence on labour supply elasticities in the presence of informal employment remains scarce....

This paper theoretically investigates how labor-market tightness affects market outcomes if firms use informal and self-enforcing agreements to motivate workers. We characterize profit-maximizing equilibria and derive the following results. First, an increase in the supply of homogenous workers...

The vigorous growth of the Chinese economy together with its increasingly successful role in international trade may have profoundly impacted developing countries. This study examines the large increase in the international trade exposure of the Brazilian economy during 2000-2012 to assess the...

This paper makes the case that current social contracts are often inadequate, irrelevant, or unjust for informal workers. It outlines three possible future scenarios: the bad old contract, an even worse contract, and a better new contract. Under the bad old contract, informal workers lacked...

This article investigated varieties of livelihoods strategies employed by some informal women traders doing business at flea markets in the Harare Business Districts of the Harare Province. The study was informed by the Sustainable Livelihood Approach proffered by the Swedish International...

The paper aims to assess the wage differential that would induce workers to switch between informal and formal sectors, analysing the informal labour market in the Colombian Caribbean region. Relying on the theory of equalising differences, we uncover which workers perceive the highest utility...

The aim of the article is to investigate the impact of the new coronavirus infection on the Russian labor market and to suppose the actions to be taken to minimize negative economic consequences. The distinctiveness of this study is the differentiation of the impact of the physical and...

This paper proposes a framework of voluntary savings schemes (VSS) in Jordan that can complement the current formal sector arrangements to better protect informal workers against economic shocks, unemployment, old age, or disability. As benefits of traditional mandatory pension systems worldwide...

This study uncovers a gender labor productivity gap among informal firms in 14 developing economies. The results show that labor productivity is approximately 15.2 percent (or 0.165 log point) lower among women-owned than men-owned informal firms. Decomposition techniques reveal several factors...

In developing and transition economies as much as half the labor force works in the informal sector (or "shadow economy"). Informal firms congest infrastructure and other public services but do not contribute the taxes needed to finance them. Informal workers are unprotected against such...

This paper explores the relationship between economic growth and informality and highlights the role of GDP growth and its composition in the level and evolution of informality, using country data from 1991 to 2019. The analysis reveals a weak relationship, although with important differences...

The integration of active labour market policies within income support schemes - such as unemployment insurance and social assistance - has been a key component of social protection in high-income countries since the 1990s, with a rich literature reviewing its effects and implementation...

A large percentage of workers and firms operate in the informal economy, outside the line of sight of governments in emerging markets and developing economies. Widespread informality may hold back the recovery in these economies from the deep recessions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic-unless...

Several studies on individual investment decisions have been carried out in the public sector and the stock market of Ghana. In the context of this, a study was carried out to examine Ghana’s informal sector investment behavior. Specifically, the study investigated whether sociological factors...

It is a well-established practice of many Sub-Sahara African (SSA) governments to aid entrepreneurs within both the formal and informal sectors in order to enhance their performance and growth. Unfortunately, there is no agreed method by which governments can differentiate between entrepreneurs...

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,...

The main objective of this paper is to contribute to in-depth literature on the relationship between growth and the informal sector in the presence of corruption. The impact of the interaction between growth and corruption on economic performance (increase or decrease of the informal sector)...

We augment the standard asymmetric learning model with costly effort. With this adjustment, wages become fully informative of employee productivity, rather than merely reflective of public signals. Further, strategies designed to mask employee quality, commonly seen in standard models, become...

This paper empirically analyses the impact of the informal sector on long-term growth in developing countries. Using a panel of 112 countries from the icrg and Medina and Schneider (2018) over the period 1991 to 2015, a U-shaped relationship between the size of the informal sector and the growth...

The objective of this study is to investigate empirically the links between property rights and the size of the informal sector, taking into account the presence of corruption. To meet up with our objective, this paper made use of a data set of 112 countries from the ICRG, Medina, and Schneider...

The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) was applied to examine the financial attitude of informal economy workers in pension saving. This was against the background that informal economy workers were left out of formal pension schemes while micro pension schemes (MPS) remain as options that can...

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 and then link it with the employment status of individuals and the...

This paper uses rich individual-level data to understand how a nationwide formalization program (the MEI program) impacts men and women differently. The MEI program began in 2009 to reduce formalization costs for micro-entrepreneurs. The identification strategy exploits the staggered rollout of...

Informed consent in German medical law has a long and controversial tradition. For more than 100 years, medical treatment – even where medically indicated and performed under medical standards – constitutes an act of personal injury and therefore requires the patient’s consent. The basis...

This research explores the competitive environment for urban formal sector firms competing against peer formal sector firms behaving informally in Central America. Explored is the upper bound of the formal-informal continuum in a regional economic environment of persistent and widespread...

This article reviews the recent literature in economics on small-scale entrepreneurship ("microentrepreneurship") in low-income countries. Major themes in the literature include the determinants and consequences of joining the formal sector; the impacts of access to credit and other financial...

Credit is considered as an essential tool to make informal labor's income better. In order to improve quality of their life, the state should have some supports them in credit access. This study analyzes factors causing credit access of informal labors to be changed in the time of COVID-19...

PRELIMINARY EDITION. A large percentage of workers and firms operate in the informal economy, outside the line of sight of governments in emerging market and developing economies. This may hold back the recovery in these economies from the deep recessions caused by the COVID-19 (coronavirus)...

The main objective of this paper is to contribute to in-depth literature on the relationship between growth and the informal sector in the presence of corruption. The impact of the interaction between growth and corruption on economic performance (increase or decrease of the informal sector)...

It is a well-established practice of many Sub-Sahara African (SSA) governments to aid entrepreneurs within both the formal and informal sectors in order to enhance their performance and growth. Unfortunately, there is no agreed method by which governments can differentiate between entrepreneurs...

This paper is interested in explaining the causes of the simultaneous evolution between economic growth and informality. Using a large annual panel of African countries with a time series of 25 years, ours results show that when the corruption rate is above (below) a threshold of 1.3577,...

We build an equilibrium model of a small open economy with labor market frictions and imperfectly enforced regulations. Heterogeneous firms sort into the formal or informal sector. We estimate the model using data from Brazil, and use counterfactual simulations to understand how trade affects...