Rural–urban migration,urban unemployment and the structural transformation of a dual economy

This paper restructures the Harris–Todaro model in such a way that rural–urban migration in the presence of urban unemployment brings in the structural transformation desired for a developing dual economy by expanding the industrial sector before any policy is introduced to cure the domestic factor market distortion. Furthermore, migration may also help to eliminate unemployment as well as the wage gap in the economy. When international trade is introduced in this restructured dual economy, trade policies would have new implications; for example, unlike in the original Harris– Todaro structure, the import tariff may bring full employment and eliminate wage gaps between the sectors.     

Informal employment in service industries: estimations from nationally representative Labour Force Survey data of Russian Federation

ABSTRACT

As the largest post-Soviet transition economy with substantial labour immigration and a considerable informal-sector Russia serves as an interesting case to study informal employment in the service and non-service economic sectors. The study fills the gap of the lack of empirical papers grounded on the reliable massive individual data. This article discusses almost twenty years’ dynamics of informal employment rates within the service and non-service industries based on the nationally representative Labour Force Survey primary data, collected quarterly for 2010–2015 with a sample size of about 200 thousand respondents per quarter. The unexpected finding is that the rate of informal employment is higher in non-service economic activities. Informal workers in the service sector in Russia are typically male, not very young, without tertiary education, living in urban areas. The paper also provides a comparative regression analysis on the probability of being informally employed in the service and non-service sectors.     

How and how far to liberalize a developing economy with informal sector and factor market distortions

Whether a liberalizing developing economy should implement the entire WTO-prescribed package, and to what extent this is expedient, are two important questions, especially because the available empirical evidence suggests that developing countries have been facing substantial adjustment costs in their endeavour to implement trade and investment reform. The present paper makes a humble effort to provide answers to the above questions in terms of a three-sector general equilibrium model with informal sectors. Welfare implications of three liberalization policies: inflow of foreign capital, tariff reduction and labour market reform, have first been analysed in a full-employment framework. Later, the paper has been extended into a Harris?–?Todaro framework with an urban informal sector and capital market distortion. We have shown that welfare consequences of a tariff reform and/or a policy of deregulating the labour market crucially depend on the presence and magnitude of foreign capital in the economy. It is argued here that unless a proper choice among different prescribed policies, compatible with the internal institutional, technological and trade-related characteristics, is made, drastic implementation of reform measures may produce counterproductive results for the welfare of the relevant country.     

Space for the informal tourism economy

ABSTRACT

In developing countries, many informal economy service providers obtain their livelihoods from tourism, and occupy and share public spaces to do so. As such, these actors must develop ‘rules in use’ that allow them to work alongside other providers, both formal and informal, in these shared spaces. These actors engage in coopetition, a mix of cooperation and competition, with each other. This paper provides a case study of informal sector service providers in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to examine how these actors access resources and interact. Snowball sampling was adopted to identify actors and 47 in-depth interviews with pedicab drivers and street vendors were conducted and supplemented with naturalistic observation. Results indicate the public spaces occupied by the informal sector may be classified as common pool resources, collective goods, or semi-private goods. Further, the interaction among the actors in these public spaces is based on the types of, and capacity in, providing goods and services, and trust generated from the actors’ interactions. This research identified the formal and informal ‘rules in use’ that govern the behaviours of the actors related to the use of spaces. Suggestions for how informal economy actors can manage such spaces to enhance their livelihoods are provided.     

Formal Employment and Informal Work in Household Services

This article discusses whether employment increases are likely in household services. The conclusion is that until recently, employment increased due to a shift of service work from households to the formal economy (especially the public sector). The growing number of childless or single parent households means a growing demand for services from the formal economy. Still, it seems likely that the service employment growth will slow down and be substituted by work in the informal economy, due to the cost increases in the formal economy connected with low productivity growth in service activities.     

试论非正规就业对完善城市社会保障制度的影响

经济转型期间 ,我国城市劳动力市场处于分割状态 ,城市存在正规和非正规两大部门 ,非正规就业因此产生。由于体制性原因和经济性原因 ,非正规就业在我国将长期存在。但是 ,非正规就业者的社会保障权益却普遍缺失。从多方面分析了在城市劳动力市场长期分割的背景下 ,非正规就业对完善城市社会保障制度的影响     

城乡经济协调发展的问题、成因及对策研究——以江苏省为例

城乡经济协调作为我国实现城乡一体化发展的先行条件,是当前阶段我们所要解决的重大社会经济问题。本文以江苏省为例,通过收集影响江苏省城乡经济协调发展的主要指标的数值,就时间和空间两个维度对江苏省城乡经济的协调发展的现状进行深入分析,并从生产力、要素聚集效应、劳动力市场和社会保障制度四个方面探讨了江苏省城乡经济协调发展中问题的主要原因,最后提出了相关建议措施。     

EXTERNAL SHOCKS AND THE URBAN POOR

This paper examines the effect of external shocks on urban poverty in a two‐household (rich and poor), two‐sector intertemporal model of an open economy with segmented labor markets. Skilled and unskilled labor are used in the formal sector, whereas only unskilled labor (which moves freely across sectors) is used in the informal economy. The extent to which a permanent increase in the world risk‐free interest rate affects the incidence and depth of poverty is shown to depend crucially on the wedge between consumption and product wages. The model is also extended to account for endogenous minimum wages and capital accumulation.     

Appraisal of women's work

Women's work in the developing country of India contributes to sectoral production in the national economy and household production in the family economy. A conceptual framework based on systems exchange assumption classifies women's work as formal sector, informal sector, household production and home production activities. Various economic evaluation methods related to unpaid household work can be applied to appraise the value of women's work. Farm women of Haryana have a 13-hour workday in farm, dairy and home sectors. The estimated monetary value of the 13-hour workday is Rs. 15–55.     

Organizational differences in recruiting older department store workers in the US

Department store retailers need a reliable and stable labour resource, particularly for entry-level positions. Older workers may be an alternative labour pool for these positions. The goal of this study is to learn whether department store attributes and recruitment representative characteristics affect the use of formal and informal recruiting strategies in developing an older applicant pool. The findings indicate that small sales volume stores used both formal and informal recruiting practices significantly less than medium or large stores. Further, younger respondents and human resource support staff relied upon informal methods more than formal ones. Finally, highly educated recruiting representatives used formal recruiting methods more than those with less education.     

城乡统筹发展视角下的农村金融探究

目前,我国农村金融发展相对滞后,城乡金融二元结构比较突出。发挥金融对统筹城乡发展的支撑作用,需要从加快农村经济发展、培育市场主体、创新金融产品和服务、完善担保机构和保险体系等多个方面共同推进,同时应注重金融立法、财税扶持、发展农村经济合作组织等配套措施的完善。     

Central Banking in the English Provinces in the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century

A feature of Britain's industrialisation during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was the persistence of small-scale production and producers. In a variety of contexts small businesspeople had a striking presence in the local economy and society. However, relatively little is known about this sector of the business community. This paper describes the economic characteristics of micro-scale and small craft businesses in one area of rural lowland Scotland between c.1830 and c.1900. Issues examined include firm size, capital investment, profits, multiple business strategies, persistence rates, the independence of producers, and formal organisation among these small businesspeople. The micro and small-scale business sector in this area is found to share many of the characteristics of such groups in other contexts. An internal diversity was also found, with producers merging with the world of wage labour at one end of the spectrum and the ranks of established enterprise at the other. This feature was reflected in the social standing of the small businesspeople.     

The welfare impacts of a revenue-neutral switch from tariffs to VAT with intermediate inputs and a VAT threshold

The debate about replacing tariffs with value-added tax (VAT) in developing countries has paid little attention to the role of VAT as an input tax on the informal sector and has overlooked the usefulness of changing the VAT threshold in a revenue-neutral switch from tariffs to VAT. This paper contributes to the literature by addressing these two issues via a heterogeneous firm model of a small open economy with endogenous firm entry and VAT compliance. The results found indicate that the VAT collected on intermediate inputs consumed by the informal sector not only reduces the benefits of evading VAT, but also diminishes the production distortion between the formal and the informal sectors. The use of a change in the VAT threshold to offset lost tariff revenue leads to welfare gains; however, the source of such gains is different from that of a change in the VAT rate. While an increase in the VAT rate expands informality, a revenue-equivalent decrease in the VAT threshold reduces informality. These novel results suggest that the VAT threshold plays an important role in the design of revenue-neutral tax reforms.     

Labour–management relationships in transitional economies: convergence or divergence in Vietnam and Indonesia?

Western labour–management relationships (both formal and informal), their respective rights, obligations and negotiating frameworks, have been well- established, understood, and supported by a complex set of associated legislation for decades. However, in many developing countries, including Vietnam and Indonesia, historical, socio-cultural, ideological or political factors constrained the development of such formalized employee relations until very recent times. This paper explores the different paths taken by Vietnam and Indonesia towards a modern employee relations system, with its concomitant positive and adverse consequences.     

Formal and informal sectors: is there any wage differential?

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this paper is to investigate if a wage difference exists between formal and informal sectors in the case of the Turkish labour market using a sample of wageworkers. To this end, we use data for 2004 and 2009 and a novel definition of the informal sector. On the methodological front, we adopt three alternative decomposition techniques, namely, the Oaxaca-Ransom [(1994). On discrimination and the decomposition of wage differentials. Journal of Econometrics, 61, 5–21] decomposition in the context of mean regression, the Machado and Mata [(2005). Counterfactual decomposition of changes in wage distributions using quantile regression. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 20(4), 445–465] decomposition in the quantile regression framework and the non-parametric decomposition method proposed by Nopo [(2008). Matching as a tool to decompose wage gap. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 90(2), 290–299]. The results reveal the existence of a wage gap between the two sectors. We found education and experience to be key determinants of earnings. The findings of this paper have implications for policies, which might be directed towards developing approaches with a focus on education and experience.     

Metropolregionen: Impulsgeber für Strukturwandel und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung

Urban centres and their surroundings often act as highly dynamic economic areas. Due to continuing urban migration, population growth as well as their heightened potential for employment, they have significant impact on Germany’s overall economic performance. Cities benefit from their neighbouring regions via a division of labour based on functional and spatial comparative advantages. Jobs in the service sector are concentrated in the city, while surrounding regions show a relatively high specialisation in the industrial sector. The economic development of metropolitan regions can be fostered particularly by improving supra-regional metropolitan functions related to education and to research and development. Moreover, the improvement of the intra-regional infrastructure also contributes to the economic strength of the whole metropolitan area.     

Intersectoral size differences and migration: Kuznets revisited

That researchers look for the inverted-U shape in inequality in the arbitrary periods of arbitrary countries underlies the divergent empirical evidence across studies. To point to the right context for the pattern, this paper establishes a formal mechanism in line with Kuznets' explanation that relates to the industrialization-cum-urbanization phases of closed trade regimes. The mechanism involves an interaction among urban–rural sectoral size differences, agricultural tastes/income, and migration, and predicts an inverted-U shape in inequality in the following way: (i) widening differences in the sizes of urban and rural sectors due to exogenous shocks affect negatively the agricultural tastes/income, worsening inequality; (ii) increasing sectoral size differences and decreasing agricultural tastes/income jointly foster intersectoral migration; (iii) migration acts, in turn, as an equilibrating effect, improving the income distribution. Empirically testing these predictions, non-Sub-Saharan developing countries' data support the mechanism, while data from developed and Sub-Saharan African countries provide little support, as per our prior expectations. This highlights a contrasting evidence on the inverted-U shape across country groups of differing development stages.     

Female labour force participation and labour saving gadgets

Abstract

We show under what conditions women would migrate out of the household sector into formal sector jobs, in response to increased ability to use labour saving household gadgets, which raise the productivity of female labour engaged in household tasks. We model a small open economy with three outputs: one labour-intensive manufactured export (cloth), one capital-intensive intermediate good (gadgets) and one non-traded ‘household-sector good’ (meals) which requires both female labour and household gadgets for production. A terms-of-trade improvement capturing greater world demand for labour-intensive manufactured exports enables greater adoption of labour-saving household gadgets in response to changing relative prices. If the elasticity of substitution between female labour and household gadgets exceeds a threshold, this will result in women migrating from the household to formal sector employment. What matters is not the actual date of invention of these labour-saving appliances (female labour force participation may not grow significantly until long after) but their increased adoption by the small economy in response to changing relative prices.     

发展中国家非正式风险分担研究述评

近年来，风险和脆弱性成为贫困问题研究的新领域。在发展中国家的农村地区，正规的保险市场不发达．非正式的风险分担成为穷人应对风险分担的主要方式。在对目前非风险分担研究的几个方面进行综述的基础上，展望了进一步的研究方向。     

托达罗人口流动模型与中国农村剩余劳动力的转移

长期以来,人们一直认为托达罗模型是解决二元经济结构下人口流动问题的有效措施.但是,我国人口流动的实践证明:托达罗模型没有考虑到农村剩余劳动力的供给不断增加的问题;也没有看到随着第三产业的发展时劳动力的大量需求.托达罗提出的控制农村人口向城市迁移的模型,只是控制了城市人口不会大量增加,在一定程度上加剧了农村人口的增长趋势,把城市中的失业问题转移到了农村,并没有从根源上解决农村剩余劳动力的就业问题.托达罗模型自身的理论缺陷,不仅不能解决我国的农村问题,反而对城市经济发展产生极为不利的影响.应从托达罗人口流动模型中吸取经验教训,取消户籍制度,打破城乡二元劳动力市场分割的局面,建立全国统一的劳动力市场,允许农村剩余劳动力向城市迁移,降低劳动力迁移成本,加快我国城市化进程.