Economic growth in Russia in the first decade of this century almost doubled the country's GDP but was accompanied by … substantial reallocation of labor to the unregulated sector while formal employment was on gradual decline. The paper overviews … employment and earnings as well as the associated political economy challenges and consequences. …

of the reform on informal employment. Informality is defined using information on employment registration and self-employment …-in-difference ; transition ; Russia …

Having unique data we investigate informal employment and "envelope payments" as additional costs of worker … employment than their non-displaced counterparts. Our main results confirm our contention that displacement entraps some of the … workers in involuntary informal employment. Those who quit, in turn, experience voluntary informality for the most part, but …

informality. Given the size of the informal sector in Russia (19-28% of total employment), any tightening of enforcement must be … the choice between formal and informal employment and between selfemployment and wage employment. We depart from the most … coverage by social security contributions, primarily, contributions to the Pension Fund. We find that types of employment …