[PDF] Trade Sanctions And Informal Employment eBook

Author : Ali Moghaddasi Kelishomi
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 30,89 MB
Release : 2023
Category :
ISBN : 9789292673277

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This paper examines how trade sanctions affect the allocation of workers across formal and informal employment. We analyse the case of the unexpected and unprecedented trade sanctions imposed on Iran in 2012. We use a difference-in-differences approach and compare the probability of working in the informal sector before and after 2012 for individuals employed in industries with pre-existing different levels of exposure to international trade. Combining employment data from the Iranian Labour Force Survey and trade data from Iran's Customs Administration database for the years 2008-14, we find that workers employed in industries initially facing higher exposure to trade are significantly more likely to experience informal employment in the years after 2012 than workers employed in industries with lower trade exposure. This result suggests that, in the short run, the informal sector may absorb a significant fraction of workers displaced by the trade shock caused by the sanctions. We estimate that the increase in informal employment is highest for poorly educated workers, highlighting the unequal labour market consequences of trade sanctions. We exclude that industries differentially exposed to international trade were already following a different trend in the share of informal employment in the years prior to 2012, thus providing empirical support for the validity of our identification strategy. Moreover, we show that our main result holds when accounting for potential sorting issues by an instrumental variable approach. Our findings shed light on a potentially important dimension of labour reallocation whereby trade sanctions can affect the economy of the target country. They also provide important implications for policies designed to address informal employment and to assist trade-displaced workers.

Author : Ali Moghaddasi Kelishomi
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 38,52 MB
Release : 2023
Category :
ISBN :

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This paper examines how economic sanctions affect the allocation of workers across formal and informal employment. We analyse the case of the unprecedented sanctions imposed on Iran in 2012. Employing a difference-in-differences approach, we compare the probability of being employed in the informal sector before and after 2012 for workers in industries with different pre-existing exposure to international trade. Our analysis reveals that, following the sanctions, workers in industries with higher trade exposure are significantly more likely to experience informal employment compared to workers in industries with lower trade exposure. These results remain robust when accounting for potential sorting issues by using an instrumental variable approach. Our findings suggest that the sudden shock to market access caused by the sanctions might have induced a decline in firms' productivity, especially in industries that heavily depend on imported inputs, and therefore an increase in firms' incentives to reduce the costs by shifting their employees to the informal sector. This sheds light on an important margin of labour market adjustment through which sanctions can affect the economy of the target country.

Author : Franziska Ohnsorge
Publisher : World Bank Publications
Page : 397 pages
File Size : 42,9 MB
Release : 2022-02-09
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 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.

Author : Marc Bacchetta
Publisher : World Trade Organization
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 34,87 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9789287036919

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World trade has expanded significantly in recent years, making a major contribution to global growth. Economic growth has not led to a corresponding improvement in working conditions and living standards for many workers. In developing countries, job creation has largely taken place in the informal economy, where around 60 per cent of workers are employed. Most of the workers in the informal economy have almost no job security, low incomes and no social protection, with limited opportunities to benefit from globalization. This study focuses on the relationship between trade And The growth of the informal economy in developing countries. Based on existing academic literature, complemented with new empirical research by the ILO And The WTO, The study discusses how trade reform affects different aspects of the informal economy. it also examines how high rates of informal employment diminish the scope for developing countries to translate trade openness into sustainable long-term growth. The report analyses how well-designed trade and decent-work friendly policies can complement each other so as to promote sustainable development and growing prosperity in developing countries.

Author : Guillermo Perry
Publisher : World Bank Publications
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 33,92 MB
Release : 2007
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 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.

Author : William Francis Maloney
Publisher : World Bank Publications
Page : 32 pages
File Size : 20,11 MB
Release : 2003
Category : Informal sector (Economics)
ISBN :

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The author develops a view of the informal sector in developing countries primarily as an unregulated micro-entrepreneurial sector and not as a disadvantaged residual of segmented labor markets. Drawing on recent work from Latin America, he offers alternative explanations for many of the characteristics of the informal sector customarily regarded as evidence of its inferiority.

Author : Ana Maria Oviedo
Publisher : World Bank Publications
Page : 54 pages
File Size : 44,14 MB
Release : 2009-06-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0821379976

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This survey assembles recent theoretical and empirical advances in the literature on economic informality and analyzes the causes and costs of informality in developed and developing economies. Using recent evidence, the survey discusses the nature and roots of informal economic activity across countries, distinguishing between informality as the result of exclusion and exit. The survey provides an extensive review of recent international experience with policies aimed at reducing informality, in particular, policies that facilitate the formalization process, create a framework for the transition from informality to formality, lend support to newly created firms, reduce or eliminate inconsistencies across regulation and government agencies, increase information flows, and increase enforcement.

Author : Adrienne E. Eaton
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 393 pages
File Size : 32,51 MB
Release : 2017-04-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1501707957

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Informal Workers and Collective Action features nine cases of collective action to improve the status and working conditions of informal workers. Adrienne E. Eaton, Susan J. Schurman, and Martha A. Chen set the stage by defining informal work and describing the types of organizations that represent the interests of informal workers and the lessons that may be learned from the examples presented in the book. Cases from a diverse set of countries—Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Liberia, South Africa, Tunisia, and Uruguay—focus on two broad types of informal workers: "waged" workers, including port workers, beer promoters, hospitality and retail workers, domestic workers, low-skilled public sector workers, and construction workers; and self-employed workers, including street vendors, waste recyclers, and minibus drivers.These cases demonstrate that workers and labor organizations around the world are rediscovering the lessons of early labor organizers on how to aggregate individuals' sense of injustice into forms of collective action that achieve a level of power that can yield important changes in their work and lives. Informal Workers and Collective Action makes a strong argument that informal workers, their organizations, and their campaigns represent the leading edge of the most significant change in the global labor movement in more than a century.Contributors Gocha Aleksandria, Georgian Trade Union Confederation Martha A. Chen, Harvard University and WIEGO Sonia Maria Dias, WIEGO and Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil Adrienne E. Eaton, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Mary Evans, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Janice Fine, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Mary Goldsmith, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco Daniel Hawkins, National Trade Union School of Colombia Elza Jgerenaia, Labor and Employment Policy Department for the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs, Republic of Georgia Stephen J. King, Georgetown University Allison J. Petrozziello, UN Women and the Center for Migration Observation and Social Development Pewee Reed, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Republic of Liberia Sahra Ryklief, International Federation of Workers' Education Associations Susan J. Schurman, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Vera Alice Cardoso Silva, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil Milton Weeks, Devin Corporation

Author : Robert Looney
Publisher : Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research
Page : 13 pages
File Size : 43,17 MB
Release : 2007-06-21
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN : 994800891X

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Iraq’s economy has undergone profound changes over the last decade, many of which have had significant implications on the evolution of the country’s informal economy. The statist, heavy-handed economic policies of the Ba’athist government concentrated much of Iraq’s productive capacity on nationalized factors, which degraded under the sanctions regime of the 1990s, when both industrial and agricultural production faltered for lack of input. The 2003 overthrow of the regime saw the nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contract by 35 percent and it has recovered little since then, despite US-led reconstruction efforts. The only part of the economy to have survived both Saddam Hussein and the post-2003 period of instability is the country’s informal economy. At the aggregate level, corruption appears to be a key factor in the growth of Iraq’s informal economy. Over the years, corruption at many levels has led to a general reduction in trust on the part of market participants. Furthermore, the reduction in social capital has forced the shift of many transactions from the formal to the informal markets, where intimate knowledge of participants provides some insurance against fraud and non-compliance. Other factors, such as the shortage of energy and electricity and the dangers associated with transport, have caused a number of previously formal businesses to revert to the informal economy. This has been particularly evident in the agricultural sector, the neglect and subsequent demise of which has not only forced many farmers into informal subsistence-type farming, but has also greatly limited the ability of the sector to play its traditional role as a temporary source of employment for unemployed urban workers. The shutting down of many schools and poor quality of education among others, together with low family incomes, have forced many children into the informal sector—mainly as street vendors. The country’s many child labor laws are being largely ignored by the authorities. Meanwhile, women are also increasingly becoming participants in the informal economy. Many have been widowed or abandoned and the informal sector provides their easiest access to income. The high level of corruption in post-war Iraq continues to reinforce these trends. In its latest assessment, the prestigious Transparency International has ranked Iraq as the most corrupt country in the Middle East. In short, the issues require far more than simply organizing and financing a massive construction program. Rather, what is required is the rebuilding of a devastated economy and society simultaneously. In a nutshell, the issues require a development strategy under crisis. This study outlines several areas that require greater attention in the country’s reform program, as well as strategies that might help stem the tide toward informal activity in Iraq. Taken as a whole, these policy initiatives have the potential to not only significantly expand domestic employment opportunities, but more importantly, to do so through the creation of a virtuous cycle with feedback between the domestic market, further reforms and the incorporation of the informal segments of the economy into the formal sector. Ultimately, a rapidly growing formal private sector is essential for making any significant progress in combating Iraq’s vast informal economy and job creation needs.