In spite of having some intensive national strategies to address poverty, Tanzania lacks a coherent national strategy to ensure sustainable livelihoods for those working in its informal economy, of which street vending is an important sector. Based on qualitative, in-depth data collected through...

In this paper we analyse informal work in Mexico, which accounts for the majority of employment in the country and has grown over time. We document that the informal sector is composed of two distinct parts: salaried informal employment and self-employment. Relative to self-employment and formal...

Despite the severe negative economic shock associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence from many contexts points to a surge in sales on online platforms, as well as shifts in the composition of demand. This paper investigates how the pandemic has affected both the supply of and demand for...

We present the first study that examines the effects of ethnic diversity on informal work. Using two waves of data from the Ghana Socioeconomic Panel Survey, we find that ethnic diversity is associated with a higher probability of engaging in informal work. Specifically, our instrumental...

We use long-spanning individual longitudinal data to examine the long-term labour market outcomes of low-tier informal workers. We investigate their characteristics, calculate the extent of switching, and identify the characteristics of those who have switched. Finally, we estimate the earnings...

This paper examines employment transitions in the South African labour market. Using the Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series, it analyses flows between the formal sector, informal sector, and unemployment, paying specific attention to how these flows differ during recessions. It explicitly...

While there is general agreement that regulatory avoidance is an important part of firms' decisions to produce in the informal sector, there is much less agreement on how regulation and enforcement affect firms' decisions on, inter alia, which sector they locate in, their employment decisions,...

Informal self-employed traders in developing countries are vulnerable to shocks as they often lack access to social insurance or formal finance. This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these urban traders in the capital of Mozambique, Maputo. Drawing on longitudinal phone...

We study the causal effect of motherhood on labour market outcomes in Latin America by adopting an event study approach around the birth of the first child based on panel data from national household surveys for Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay. Our main contributions are: (i) providing new and...

This paper uses national representative data from the Ecuadorian Family Expenditure survey to study the determinants of poverty and informality in the country, taking into account the simultaneous two-way relationship between these two phenomena. The results support the view of a heterogeneous...