Management, Society, and the Informal Economy
Management, Society, and the Informal Economy

Author: Paul Godfrey

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-07-03

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1317633199

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Informal economic activity, defined as exchanges made by individuals and organizations in extra-legal or non-bureaucratic contexts, represents a significant and growing share of global economic activity. The informal economy brings to mind images of street vendors in markets and bazaars throughout the developing world; indeed, informal economic activity ranges from 25-75% of economic activity, depending on the country under study. Informal activity also includes "under the table," or "off the books" business in the developed world, such as informal labor arrangements in child care, construction, or home cleaning in the United States or Western Europe. What many fail to realize, however, is the increasing presence of informal economic activity in the developed world’s largest corporations and most innovative entrepreneurial ventures, such as technology development work in Silicon Valley, open source software agreements, or employment arrangements between "technology stars" and firms. Management, Society, and the Informal Economy brings to light the role of the informal economy in the 21st century. The book does more than illuminate, however – it also calls for increased focus on the informal economy by management scholars. Each chapter contains a call to action, as well as practical and methodological advice for scholarship on the topic. Management, Society, and the Informal Economy contains a multi-faceted set of arguments, descriptions, and illustrations designed to convince management scholars that they should attend to the informal economy and view it as a serious and rigorous context for theorizing, empirical research, and even practical advocacy.

The Long Shadow of Informality
The Long Shadow of Informality

Author: Franziska Ohnsorge

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2022-02-09

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 1464817545

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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 pandemic--unless governments adopt a broad set of policies to address the challenges of widespread informality. This study is the first comprehensive analysis of the extent of informality and its implications for a durable economic recovery and for long-term development. It finds that pervasive informality is associated with significantly weaker economic outcomes--including lower government resources to combat recessions, lower per capita incomes, greater poverty, less financial development, and weaker investment and productivity.

Management, Society, and the Informal Economy
Management, Society, and the Informal Economy

Author: Paul Godfrey

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-07-03

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1317633180

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Informal economic activity, defined as exchanges made by individuals and organizations in extra-legal or non-bureaucratic contexts, represents a significant and growing share of global economic activity. The informal economy brings to mind images of street vendors in markets and bazaars throughout the developing world; indeed, informal economic activity ranges from 25-75% of economic activity, depending on the country under study. Informal activity also includes "under the table," or "off the books" business in the developed world, such as informal labor arrangements in child care, construction, or home cleaning in the United States or Western Europe. What many fail to realize, however, is the increasing presence of informal economic activity in the developed world’s largest corporations and most innovative entrepreneurial ventures, such as technology development work in Silicon Valley, open source software agreements, or employment arrangements between "technology stars" and firms. Management, Society, and the Informal Economy brings to light the role of the informal economy in the 21st century. The book does more than illuminate, however – it also calls for increased focus on the informal economy by management scholars. Each chapter contains a call to action, as well as practical and methodological advice for scholarship on the topic. Management, Society, and the Informal Economy contains a multi-faceted set of arguments, descriptions, and illustrations designed to convince management scholars that they should attend to the informal economy and view it as a serious and rigorous context for theorizing, empirical research, and even practical advocacy.

Decent Work and the Informal Economy
Decent Work and the Informal Economy

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13:

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Describes the informal economy and highlights its decent work deficit. Proposes an integrated strategy to address underlying causes of informality and to promote decent work in all sectors of the economy, from formal to informal.

The Informal Economy
The Informal Economy

Author: Ioana Horodnic

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-22

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1351655310

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During much of the twentieth century, informal employment and entrepreneurship was commonly depicted as a residue from a previous era. Its continuing presence was seen to be a sign of "backwardness" whilst the formal economy represented "progress". In recent decades, however, numerous studies have revealed not only that informal employment is extensive and persistent but also that it is growing relative to formal employment in many populations. Whilst in the developing world, the informal economy is often found to be the mainstream economy, nevertheless, in the developed world too, informality is currently still estimated to account for notable per cent of GDP. The Informal Economy: Exploring Drivers and Practices intends to engage with these issues, providing a much-need ‘contextualised’ approach to explain the persistence and growth of forms of informal economic practices and entrepreneurial activities in the twenty-first century. Using a diverse range of empirical case studies from Europe, Africa, North Africa and Asia, this book unpacks the different varieties of forms of informal work and entrepreneurship and provides a critical analysis of existing theorisations used to explain such phenomena. This book’s aim is to examine the nature and persistence of informal work and entrepreneurship, across a variety of empirical settings, from within the developed world, the developing world and within transformation economies within post-socialist spaces. Given its worldwide, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach and recent interest in the informal economies by a number of disciplines and organisations, this book will be of vital reading to those operating in the fields of: Economics, political economy and management, Human and economic geography and Economic anthropology and sociology as well as development studies

The Informal Economy Revisited
The Informal Economy Revisited

Author: Martha Chen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-07-14

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 0429575386

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This landmark volume brings together leading scholars in the field to investigate recent conceptual shifts, research findings and policy debates on the informal economy as well as future challenges and directions for research and policy. Well over half of the global workforce and the vast majority of the workforce in developing countries work in the informal economy, and in countries around the world new forms of informal employment are emerging. Yet the informal workforce is not well understood, remains undervalued and is widely stigmatised. Contributors to the volume bridge a range of disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, development economics, law, political science, social policy, sociology, statistics, urban planning and design. The Informal Economy Revisited also focuses on specific groups of informal workers, including home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers, to provide a grounded insight into disciplinary debates. Ultimately, the book calls for a paradigm shift in how the informal economy is perceived to reflect the realities of informal work in the Global South, as well as the informal practices of the state and capital, not just labour. The Informal Economy Revisited is the culmination of 20 years of pioneering work by WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing), a global network of researchers, development practitioners and organisations of informal workers in 90 countries. Researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and advocates will all find this book an invaluable guide to the significance and complexities of the informal economy, and its role in today’s globalised economy. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429200724, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Formalization of the Informal Economy
Formalization of the Informal Economy

Author: Colin C. Williams

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-09-09

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 3031379284

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This Brief provides a cutting-edge evaluation of the application of digital technologies to tackle the informal economy. Employing institutional theory to explain the informal economy, this book reveals that the informal economy arises when formal institutional failings trigger a gap between the formal rules of the game and social norms. Chapters outline how use of digital technologies by public authorities, such as tax, social security and labor authorities, can alter social norms so that they accord with the formal rules of the game and generate a formalization of the informal economy. Setting out the e-government tools that can improve the relationship between businesses, employers, workers and citizens, and government, this book will be essential reading for academics and advanced students studying development economics, labor economics, public economics, behavioral economics, economic sociology and institutional economics as well as for government policymakers working in related fields.

Entrepreneurship in the Informal Sector
Entrepreneurship in the Informal Sector

Author: Colin C. Williams

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-22

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1317406931

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How many businesses start-ups conduct some or all of their trade ‘off-the-books’? And how many enterprises continue to do some of their work off-the-books once they are more established? What should be done about them? Should governments adopt ever more punitive measures to eradicate them? Or should we recognise this hidden enterprise culture and attempt to harness it? If so, how can this be done? What measures can be taken to ensure that businesses start-up in a proper manner? And what can be done to help those enterprises and entrepreneurs currently working off-the-books to legitimise their businesses? The aim of this book is to advance a new way of answering these questions. Drawing inspiration from institutional theory, informal sector entrepreneurship is explained as resulting from the asymmetry between the codified laws and regulations of a society’s formal institutions and the norms, values and beliefs that comprise a society’s informal institutions. The argument is that if the norms, values and beliefs of entrepreneurs (i.e., their individual morality) were wholly aligned with the codified laws and regulations (i.e., state morality), there would be no informal sector entrepreneurship. However, because the individual morality of entrepreneurs differs from state morality, such as due to their lack of trust in government and the rule of law, the result is the prevalence of informal sector entrepreneurship. The greater the degree of institutional asymmetry, the higher is the propensity to engage in informal sector entrepreneurship. This book provides evidence to show that this is the case both at the individual- and country-level and then discusses how this can be overcome. .

Informality
Informality

Author: Guillermo Perry

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0821370936

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Analyzes informality in Latin America, exploring root causes and reasons for and implications of its growth. This book uses two distinct but complementary lenses. It concludes that reducing informality levels and overcoming the "culture of informality" will require actions to increase aggregate productivity in the economy.