This paper considers the idea of informality in market exchange, as introduced into the economic development literature by Keith Hart in the 1970s. In addition to Hart (1971, 1973) it will discuss three writers who may be considered his intellectual forerunners. Each, to a greater or less...

In much of the literature on economic development, sustained economic growth is expected to be accompanied by several interrelated processes of structure change, which involve a shift in economic activities from "traditional"/agricultural/informal to "modern"/industrial/formal sectors. Such...

This paper investigates the urbanization of the Indian manufacturing sector by combining enterprise data from formal and informal sectors. We find that plants in the formal sector are moving away from urban and into rural locations, while the informal sector is moving from rural to urban...

The purpose of this essay is to argue that process-regarding preferences or social norms are pervasive in traditional village communities, yet are subject to gradual erosion under the influence of new forces, particularly population growth and market penetration. This is illustrated with respect...

The movement of workers from the farm sector to a more productive nonfarm sector has failed to generate significant gains in labor productivity in recent decades in many developing countries. This paper offers a new perspective into the barriers to growth-enhancing structural transformation,...

This paper uses the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) from 1998 to 2004 to analyze the effect of previous informal economy activities on the creation of official entrepreneurship. We find that previous participation in the informal economy is positively associated with the...

This paper introduces a comprehensive database of informal economic activity. The database focuses on measures that have strong cross-country and over time coverage: it includes both model-based and survey-based measures of informality and covers more than 160 economies for the period 1990-2018....

We study the degree of synchronization between formal- and informal-economy business cycles. Using a comprehensive database of informal activity that covers a wide range of informality measures from almost 160 countries over the 1990-2018 period, we report two major results. First, fluctuations...

A review of the mode of regulation of the labor market regulation is expected according to the new "labor law" - in circulation for some time. The debate remains open as to the "illegalization" of informal job or the "formalization" of the informal economy. Informal employment (not affiliated...

Is the vast army of the self-employed in low income countries a source of employment generation? We use data from surveys in Sri Lanka to compare the characteristics of own account workers (non-employers) with wage workers and with owners of larger firms. We use a rich set of measures of...