Informal barriers and agricultural trade: does monetary integration matter?

EU enlargement and the recent sovereign‐debt crisis of Euro zone countries have revived the debate around the (European Monetary Union) EMU. In this article we ask how informal barriers to agricultural and food trade have changed since the introduction of the common European currency, and whether this evolution can be attributed to monetary integration. We focus on the foreign trade of the 11 EMU founder countries over a nine‐year period covering the creation of the EMU and find a diminishing marginal trade impact of both information and institutional barriers. We find a lower level of trade barriers, but cannot attribute this outcome to the introduction to the Euro.     

Informal settlements’ needs and environmental conservation in Mexico City: An unsolved challenge for land-use policy

The aim of this article is to analyze the effectiveness of land-use policy in Mexico City in controlling the expansion of informal human settlements in peri-urban zones of high ecological value. It is argued that Mexico City's land-use policy has been reactive and internally inconsistent, failing to take informal settlements into account, has not offered the poor access to housing with adequate services and greater security in terms of land tenure, and lacks the necessary financial resources and institutional capabilities for providing solutions to these problems. Through a case study of informal settlement management policy in the Tlalpan Delegation,¹ applied in what has been termed SC or “Conservation Land,”² we conclude that local government exhibits an inability to confront the new challenge of urban sustainability, that it resorts to conventional solutions which give rise to contradictory situations where political decision-making prevails over ecological considerations, so land-use policy is permissive and does not halt informal urban expansion in areas of high environmental value.     

当前高校大学生非正式群体的形成与管理策略探析

随着社会经济的快速发展,大学生非正式群体在高校已普遍存在,在其学习生活中起着日益重要的作用。高校教育工作者,要密切关注大学生非正式群体,认真分析当前大学生非正式群体的形成原因及特征,从而对大学生非正式群体的管理提出行之有效的策略,以充分发挥其积极作用,促进学生素质全面发展及和谐文明大学校园建设。     

Earnings inequality and the informal economy

We analyse the extent and evolution of informality and inequality in the Serbian labour market between 2002 and 2007, using data from the Living Standard Measurement Surveys. Two surprising results emerge. First, the level of informal employment has risen significantly over the period, despite strong economic growth and the introduction of a range of market‐oriented reforms. Secondly, the level of inequality in earnings seems to have remained more or less constant over the period, in contrast to the experience of other countries at a similar stage of transition. We show that informal employees earn significantly less than those in the formal sector, controlling for a range of other variables, and informality plays an increasingly important role in explaining earnings inequality.     

影响中国房地产市场发展的主要制度安排研究

影响我国房地产市场的主要制度安排有五种：房地产住房供给和保障制度、房地产土地供给制度、房地产金融制度、房地产税收制度和存在于我国居民购房行为中的非正式制度。本文对这些制度安排的主要内容及其变迁做了分析，并研究了这些制度安排对我国房地产发展的影响。     

转型期我国市场化进程的多视角分析

本文从四个方面对转型期我国市场化进程进行了分析,一是产品市场与要素市场,二是下层市场组织与上层市场组织,三是正式经济与非正式经济,四是经济运行中的总量交易与每笔交易费用,并且对每个层次我国市场化进程发展中的问题及根源进行了制度经济学的剖析,从而为我国社会主义市场经济体制的完善提供有价值的参考.     

Informal economy, wage goods and accumulation under structural adjustment theoretical reflections based on the Tanzanian experience

Economic development in sub-Saharan Africa under structuraladjustment witnessed the upsurge of informal sector development—thedevelopment of unregulated labour-intensive activities, in partexport-oriented. This paper argues that two factors played animportant role in shaping the dynamics of informal sector development:(1) the process of the relative cheapening of wage goods asa result of their importation, partly financed through foreignaid, thereby lowering unit-labour costs in labour-intensiveproduction, and (2) the processes at work of subsidising realwages by other forms of economic security as a result of multiple,diversified and spatially extended livelihood strategies. Whilethese factors undoubtedly brought a new vitality to economicdevelopment, this paper questions the long-run sustainabilityof this new trend for two reasons. One is its dependence onforeign aid to finance imports. The other is that it does notappear to propel endogenous increases in productivity by achievinggreater synergy in intersectoral linkages between agricultureand industry.     

Informal Credit,Usury, or Support? A Case Study for Vietnam

The informal credit market remains an important source of finance for the poor in Vietnam. Yet, little if anything is known about the impact of informal loans on poverty and inequality, and the Vietnamese government has no policies towards the informal credit market. In the present study paper, we found that the effect of credit from friends and relatives on per capita expenditure is positive but not statistically significant. Meanwhile, the effect of credit from private moneylenders on per capita expenditure is positive and statistically significant. Borrowing from private moneylenders increases per capita expenditure of households by around 15%. Further, it reduced the poverty incidence of borrowers by around 8.5 percentage points in 2006 and significantly decreases the poverty gap index and the poverty‐severity index. Borrowing from private moneylenders also reduces expenditure inequality, albeit at a very small magnitude.     

非正式机制在预防犯罪中的应用

我国重视采取正式机制来预防犯罪，却忽视了非正式机制预防犯罪的重要作用，与此相应的是犯罪愈来愈成为难以解决的社会问题。单纯依靠正式机制很难有效地抑制犯罪行为的发生，而非正式机制在这方面则有着难以估量的作用。在犯罪预防中应重视对非正式机制的运用，主要从加强传统文化教育、注重利用媒体介质、加强道德教育等方面入手。