research questions informal economy

• Research & Outlook

Informal Economy Database

The World Bank’s Prospects Group has constructed a global database of informal economic activity. The database includes up to 196 economies over the period 1990-2020 and includes the 11 most commonly used measures of informal economy. 

• Dynamic General Equilibrium (DGE) model-based estimates of informal output
• Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model-based estimates of informal output

Employment:

• Self-employment 
• Informal employment
• Employment outside the formal sector
• Labor force without pension insurance

Perceptions:

• One indicator based on World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Executive Opinion surveys   
• Four indicators based on World Bank Enterprise Surveys of firms
• One indicator  based on World Value Surveys (WVS) of households

The database includes both indirect, model-based estimates (DGE- and MIMIC-based indicators) and direct measures gathered from labor force or expert, firm, or household opinion surveys.

The CERP discussion paper , by Ceyhun Elgin, M. Ayhan Kose, Franziska Ohnsorge, and Shu Yu, provides detailed information on the construction and sources for the variables included in the database and shows two applications of the database: the stylized facts of informal economic activity around the world and the cyclical features of the informal economy.

Data Download

The informal economy database is available for download in Excel . It will be updated every two years.

When using the database, please cite the following paper as the data source: Elgin, C., M. A. Kose, F. Ohnsorge, and S. Yu. 2021. “Understanding Informality.” CERP Discussion Paper 16497, Centre for Economic Policy Research, London. 

The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in the working paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank and its affiliated organizations.

For more information, please contact Shu Yu ([email protected]).

Informal economy data (Excel)

Other Studies

Please check out our other studies on the informal economy:

• The Long Shadow of Informality: Challenges and Policies
• Global Economic Prospects 2019: Growing in the Shadow: Challenges of Informality

The leading source of labour statistics

• Country profiles
• Standards & methods

Data by region

For data producers, publications, selected topics.

Home > Topics

• © Marcel Crozet / ILO

Statistics on the informal economy

Table of contents, related pages, labour market-related sdg indicators (ilosdg database), labour force statistics (lfs, stlfs, rurban databases).

World Bank – Informal Economy

Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing & Organizing (WIEGO)

Introduction

In many countries, the informal economy represents a significant part of the labour market and plays a major role in production, employment creation and income generation. However, informality puts workers at a higher risk of vulnerability and precariousness. It has a strong adverse impact on the adequacy of earnings, occupational safety and health and working conditions in general.

Informality remains a key concern of the Decent Work Agenda and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (the informality rate is part of the indicators selected to measure progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, as SDG indicator 8.3.1). Addressing informality is also critical for women’s economic empowerment and gender equality.

In 2023, the 21st International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) adopted a  resolution   updating and improving measurement standards on the informal economy, not only to reflect latest world of work developments and provide a better reflection of people’s situation but also to align them to recent standards on the measurement of all forms of work (not only employment) and work relationships adopted by the 19th and 20th ICLS.

Recognizing that there is informality in all countries (regardless of their level of income and development), in economic units of the informal sector as well as the formal sector, and in households, the new standards provide operational definitions of the formal sector, the informal sector, and the household own-use and community sector based on the formal status of the economic unit and the intended destination of the production. They also introduce  the concept of “ informal productive activities ” designating all productive activities carried out by persons or economic units that are – in law or in practice – not covered by formal arrangements, recognizing that productive activities can be “partly” informal.

In short, the  informal economy  includes all informal productive activities of persons and economic units.

Data catalogue

Latest posts

New standards, increased visibility: improving measurement of the informal economy

Assessing the current state of the global labour market: implications for achieving the Global Goals

How women are being left behind in the quest for decent work for all

In early 2021, the ILO Statistics Department started a three-year project to engender informality statistics, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project is running in parallel to the broader review of standards for informality statistics, currently undertaken through the ILO's  Working Group on the Review of Informality Statistics . It supports integration of gender in the new standards, and the development of gender-related guidance and tools for measuring informality. The main activity of the project is to test statistical concepts and household survey questionnaires, using cognitive interviewing in two countries in 2021 and a pilot field test in one country in 2022. The findings from those tests will support the working group in its discussions and drafting of the new standards, to be adopted by the 21st ICLS in 2023. The project is also assessing the existing and anticipated needs for gender data on informality (data demand) and reviewing the use of data in strategy setting and policy formulation, making recommendations to strengthen the production, accessibility and use of gender statistics on informality. For more information, please contact Jessica Gardner, Department of Statistics ( [email protected] ).

Concise description of concepts and definitions, uses, sources and limitations for labour force statistics in various databases (LFS, STLFS, RURBAN).

Concise description of concepts and definitions, uses, sources and limitations for labour market-related sustainable development indicators.

Note on the implementation of statistical standards from the 19th, 20th and 21st ICLS through household surveys

This note provides an overview of the requirements to apply the latest statistical standards through household surveys.

Resolution concerning statistics on the informal economy

This resolution aims to set standards for statistics on the informal economy. It defines the statistical concepts of informal productive activities, the informal economy, the informal market economy and informal work and provides operational concepts, definitions and guidelines for the statistical measurement of its components.

Engendering informality statistics: gaps and opportunities

This working paper explores the demand for gender data on informality and the measurement challenges faced, and highlights the opportunities emerging from the revision of statistical standards on informality that are set to be adopted in 2023.

Measuring the non-observed economy. A handbook

The main focus of the Handbook is to provide guidance on how to produce exhaustive estimates of GDP. This means ensuring that as many productive activities as possible are observed, i.e., directly measured in the basic data on production, incomes, and expenditures from which the national accounts are compiled. It also means ensuring that non-observed activities are nevertheless accounted for, i.e., indirectly measured during compilation of the national accounts.

Analytical publications

Note: Many publications are available only in English. If available in other languages, a new page will open displaying these options. 

Need help? Click here to email us.

Sign up for our quarterly newsletter

The ILO Department of Statistics is the focal point to the United Nations on labour statistics. We develop international standards for better measurement of labour issues and enhanced international comparability; provide relevant, timely and comparable labour statistics; and help Member States develop and improve their labour statistics.

Informal economy

• ILO Library Resources
• International Labour Standards
• Useful links

This guide in another language

• Economía informal by ILO Library (Indira) Last Updated Feb 2, 2024 59 views this year
• Économie informelle by ILO Library (Indira) Last Updated Feb 2, 2024 46 views this year

    Ask a Librarian  

Key ilo documents.

• R204 - Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy Recommendation (2015)
• Informality and non-standard forms of employment (2018)
• Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture (2018 )
• The Informal Economy and Decent Work: A Policy Resource Guide supporting transitions to formality (2013)

"Around half of the world’s workforce operates in the informal economy. Informal economies… are typically characterized by a high incidence of poverty, inequality and vulnerability to decent work deficits.  In June 2015, the International Labour Conference adopted the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy Recommendation, 2015 (No. 204), …the first international labour standard to focus on the informal economy in its entirety, and to point clearly in the direction of transition to the formal economy as a means for achieving decent work for all."

Formalization of the informal economy, Governing Body 329th Session, Geneva, 9–24 March 2017 GB.329/POL/2  

More ILO videos on the informal economy

• Next: ILO Library Resources >>
• Last Updated: May 9, 2024 3:21 PM
• URL: https://libguides.ilo.org/informal-economy-en

• A-Z Publications

Annual Review of Economics

Volume 12, 2020, review article, informality: causes and consequences for development.

• Gabriel Ulyssea 1,2,3
• View Affiliations Hide Affiliations Affiliations: 1 Department of Economics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3UQ, United Kingdom; email: [email protected] 2 Center for Economic and Policy Research, London EC1V 0DX, United Kingdom 3 IZA Institute of Labor Economics, 53113 Bonn, Germany
• Vol. 12:525-546 (Volume publication date August 2020) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-082119-121914
• First published as a Review in Advance on May 01, 2020
• Copyright © 2020 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

This article reviews the economic literature on informality, its causes, and its consequences for development. It covers a comprehensive body of research that ranges from well-identified experimental studies to equilibrium macro models, and which more recently includes structural models that integrate both micro and macro effects. The results available in the literature indicate that lowering the costs of formality is not an effective policy to reduce informality but may generate positive aggregate effects, such as higher output and total factor productivity (TFP). The most effective formalization policy is to increase enforcement on the extensive margin but not on the intensive margin of informality. The former generates substantial gains in aggregate TFP and output, without necessarily increasing unemployment. However, the overall welfare impacts are likely to depend on the transitional dynamics between steady states, which remains an open area for future research.

Article metrics loading...

Full text loading...

Literature Cited

• Akcigit U , Alp H , Peters M 2018 . Lack of selection and limits to delegation: firm dynamics in developing countries NBER Work. Pap 21905 [Google Scholar]
• Albrecht J , Navarro L , Vroman S 2009 . The effects of labour market policies in an economy with an informal sector. Econ. J. 119 : 1105– 29 [Google Scholar]
• Allen J , Nataraj S , Schipper TC 2018 . Strict duality and overlapping productivity distributions between formal and informal firms. J. Dev. Econ. 135 : 534– 54 [Google Scholar]
• Almeida R , Carneiro P. 2009 . Enforcement of labor regulation and firm size. J. Comp. Econ. 37 : 28– 46 [Google Scholar]
• Almeida R , Carneiro P. 2012 . Enforcement of labor regulation and informality. Am. Econ. J. Appl. Econ. 4 : 64– 89 [Google Scholar]
• Almeida RK , Poole JP. 2017 . Trade and labor reallocation with heterogeneous enforcement of labor regulations. J. Dev. Econ. 126 : 154– 66 [Google Scholar]
• Arias J , Azuara O , Bernal P , Heckman JJ , Villarreal C 2010 . Policies to promote growth and economic efficiency in Mexico NBER Work. Pap 16554 [Google Scholar]
• Auriol E , Warlters M. 2005 . Taxation base in developing countries. J. Public Econ. 89 : 625– 46 [Google Scholar]
• Azuara O , Marinescu I. 2013 . Informality and the expansion of social protection programs: evidence from Mexico. J. Health Econ. 32 : 938– 50 [Google Scholar]
• Banerjee AV , Hanna R , Kreindler GE , Olken BA 2017 . Debunking the stereotype of the lazy welfare recipient: evidence from cash transfer programs. World Bank Res. Obs. 32 : 155– 84 [Google Scholar]
• Bargain O , Kwenda P. 2014 . The informal sector wage gap: new evidence using quantile estimations on panel data. Econ. Dev. Cult. Change 63 : 117– 53 [Google Scholar]
• Benhassine N , McKenzie D , Pouliquen V , Santini M 2018 . Does inducing informal firms to formalize make sense? Experimental evidence from Benin. J. Public Econ. 157 : 1– 14 [Google Scholar]
• Bergolo M , Cruces G. 2018 . The anatomy of behavioral responses to social assistance when informal employment is high Unpublished manuscript, Univ. República Montevideo, Urug.: [Google Scholar]
• Bobba M , Flabbi L , Levy S 2017 . Labor market search, informality and schooling investments IZA Discuss. Pap. 11170, Inst. Labor Econ Bonn, Ger.: [Google Scholar]
• Bobba M , Flabbi L , Levy S , Tejada M 2019 . Labor market search, informality, and on-the-job human capital accumulation. J. Econom. In press [Google Scholar]
• Boeri T , Garibaldi P. 2005 . Shadow sorting. NBER Macroeconomics Annual C Pissarides, J Frenkel 125– 63 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press [Google Scholar]
• Bosch M , Campos-Vazquez RM. 2014 . The trade-offs of welfare policies in labor markets with informal jobs: the case of the “Seguro Popular” program in Mexico. Am. Econ. J. Econ. Policy 6 : 71– 99 [Google Scholar]
• Bosch M , Esteban-Pretel J. 2012 . Job creation and job destruction in the presence of informal markets. J. Dev. Econ. 98 : 270– 86 [Google Scholar]
• Bosch M , Esteban-Pretel J. 2015 . The labor market effects of introducing unemployment benefits in an economy with high informality. Eur. Econ. Rev. 75 : 1– 17 [Google Scholar]
• Bosch M , Goñi-Pacchioni E , Maloney W 2012 . Trade liberalization, labor reforms and formal–informal employment dynamics. Labour Econ 19 : 653– 67 [Google Scholar]
• Bosch M , Maloney WF. 2010 . Comparative analysis of labor market dynamics using Markov processes: an application to informality. Labour Econ 17 : 621– 31 [Google Scholar]
• Botelho F , Ponczek V. 2011 . Segmentation in the Brazilian labor market. Econ. Dev. Cult. Change 59 : 437– 63 [Google Scholar]
• Botero JC , Djankov S , Porta RL , Lopez-de-Silanes F , Shleifer A 2004 . The regulation of labor. Q. J. Econ. 119 : 1339– 82 [Google Scholar]
• Bracha A , Burke MA. 2016 . Who counts as employed? Informal work, employment status, and labor market slack Work. Pap., Fed. Reserve Bank Boston Boston, MA: [Google Scholar]
• Bracha A , Burke MA. 2018 . Wage inflation and informal work. Econ. Lett. 171 : 159– 63 [Google Scholar]
• Bruhn M. 2011 . License to sell: the effect of business registration reform on entrepreneurial activity in Mexico. Rev. Econ. Stat. 93 : 382– 86 [Google Scholar]
• Bruhn M , McKenzie D. 2014 . Entry regulation and the formalization of microenterprises in developing countries. World Bank Res. Obs. 29 : 186– 201 [Google Scholar]
• Busso M , Fazio M , Algazi S 2012 . (In)formal and (un)productive: the productivity costs of excessive informality in Mexico. IDB Work. Pap. IDB-WP-341, Inter-Am. Dev. Bank Washington, DC: [Google Scholar]
• Camacho A , Conover E , Hoyos A 2013 . Effects of Colombia's social protection system on workers' choice between formal and informal employment. World Bank Econ. Rev. 28 : 446– 66 [Google Scholar]
• Catão LA , Pagés C , Rosales MF 2009 . Financial dependence, formal credit, and informal jobs: new evidence from Brazilian household data IZA Discuss. Pap. 4609, Inst. Labor Econ Bonn, Ger.: [Google Scholar]
• Charlot O , Malherbet F , Terra C 2015 . Informality in developing economies: regulation and fiscal policies. J. Econ. Dyn. Control 51 : 1– 27 [Google Scholar]
• Cisneros-Acevedo C. 2019 . Unfolding trade effect in two margins of informality: the Peruvian case Job Mark. Pap., Univ. Nottingham Nottingham, UK: [Google Scholar]
• Conti G , Ginja R , Narita R 2018 . The value of health insurance: a household job search approach IZA Discuss. Pap. 11706, Inst. Labor Econ Bonn, Ger.: [Google Scholar]
• Cruces G , Porto G , Viollaz M 2018 . Trade liberalization and informality in Argentina: exploring the adjustment mechanisms. Lat. Am. Econ. Rev. 27 : 13 [Google Scholar]
• Dabla-Norris E , Gradstein M , Inchauste G 2008 . What causes firms to hide output? The determinants of informality. J. Dev. Econ. 85 : 1– 27 [Google Scholar]
• de Andrade GH , Bruhn M , McKenzie D 2016 . A helping hand or the long arm of the law? Experimental evidence on what governments can do to formalize firms. World Bank Econ. Rev. 30 : 24– 54 [Google Scholar]
• De Brauw A , Gilligan DO , Hoddinott J , Roy S 2015 . Bolsa Família and household labor supply. Econ. Dev. Cult. Change 63 : 423– 57 [Google Scholar]
• De Giorgi G , Rahman A 2013 . SME's registration: evidence from an RCT in Bangladesh. Econ. Lett. 120 : 573– 78 [Google Scholar]
• de la Parra B. 2016 . Formal firms, informal workers and household labor supply in Mexico Job Mark. Pap., Univ Chicago, Chicago: [Google Scholar]
• De Mel S , McKenzie D , Woodruff C 2013 . The demand for, and consequences of, formalization among informal firms in Sri Lanka. Am. Econ. J. Appl. Econ. 5 : 122– 50 [Google Scholar]
• De Paula A , Scheinkman JA 2010 . Value-added taxes, chain effects, and informality. Am. Econ. J. Macroecon. 2 : 195– 221 [Google Scholar]
• De Paula A , Scheinkman JA 2011 . The informal sector: an equilibrium model and some empirical evidence. Rev. Income Wealth 57 : S8– 26 [Google Scholar]
• De Soto H. 1989 . The Other Path: The Economic Answer to Terrorism New York: Harper & Row [Google Scholar]
• D'Erasmo PN. 2016 . Access to credit and the size of the formal sector. Economa 16 : 143– 99 [Google Scholar]
• D'Erasmo PN , Boedo H. 2012 . Financial structure, informality and development. J. Monet. Econ. 59 : 286– 302 [Google Scholar]
• Dix-Carneiro R , Goldberg PK , Meghir C , Ulyssea G 2019 . Trade and informality in the presence of labor market frictions and regulations Unpublished manuscript, Duke Univ Durham, NC: [Google Scholar]
• Dix-Carneiro R , Kovak BK. 2019 . Margins of labor market adjustment to trade. J. Int. Econ. 117 : 125– 42 [Google Scholar]
• Djankov S , Ganser T , McLiesh C , Ramalho R , Shleifer A 2010 . The effect of corporate taxes on investment and entrepreneurship. Am. Econ. J. Macroecon. 2 : 31– 64 [Google Scholar]
• Djankov S , Porta RL , Lopez-de-Silanes F , Shleifer A 2002 . The regulation of entry. Q. J. Econ. 117 : 1– 37 [Google Scholar]
• El Badaoui E , Strobl E , Walsh F 2010 . The formal sector wage premium and firm size. J. Dev. Econ. 91 : 37– 47 [Google Scholar]
• Eslava M , Haltiwanger JC , Pinzón A 2019 . Job creation in Colombia versus the US: “Up or out dynamics” meets the “life cycle of plants.” NBER Work. Pap 25550 [Google Scholar]
• Fajnzylber P , Maloney WF , Montes-Rojas GV 2011 . Does formality improve micro-firm performance? Evidence from the Brazilian SIMPLES program. J. Dev. Econ. 94 : 262– 76 [Google Scholar]
• Fields G. 1990 . Labour market modelling and the urban informal sector: theory and evidence. The Informal Sector Revisited D Turnham, B Salome, A Schwarz 49– 69 Paris: OECD [Google Scholar]
• Fortin B , Marceau N , Savard L 1997 . Taxation, wage controls and the informal sector. J. Public Econ. 66 : 293– 312 [Google Scholar]
• Friedman E , Johnson S , Kaufmann D , Zoido-Lobaton P 2000 . Dodging the grabbing hand: the determinants of unofficial activity in 69 countries. J. Public Econ. 76 : 459– 93 [Google Scholar]
• Fugazza M , Jacques JF. 2004 . Labor market institutions, taxation and the underground economy. J. Public Econ. 88 : 395– 418 [Google Scholar]
• Funkhouser E. 1996 . The urban informal sector in Central America: household survey evidence. World Dev 24 : 1737– 51 [Google Scholar]
• Galiani S , Weinschelbaum F. 2012 . Modelling informality formally: households and firms. Econ. Inq. 50 : 821– 38 [Google Scholar]
• Garcia IL. 2015 . Human capital and labor informality in Chile: a life-cycle approach RAND Work. Pap. WR-1087, RAND Corp Santa Monica, CA: https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR1087.html [Google Scholar]
• Garganta S , Gasparini L. 2015 . The impact of a social program on labor informality: the case of AUH in Argentina. J. Dev. Econ. 115 : 99– 110 [Google Scholar]
• Gasparini L , Tornarolli L. 2009 . Labor informality in Latin America and the Caribbean: patterns and trends from household survey microdata. Desarro. Soc. 2009 : 13– 80 [Google Scholar]
• Gerard F , Gonzaga G. 2018 . Informal labor and the efficiency cost of social programs: evidence from the Brazilian unemployment insurance program NBER Work. Pap 22608 [Google Scholar]
• Goldberg PK , Pavcnik N. 2003 . The response of the informal sector to trade liberalization. J. Dev. Econ. 72 : 463– 96 [Google Scholar]
• Gomes D , Iachan F , Santos C 2018 . Labor earnings dynamics with a large informal sector Unpublished manuscript, Univ. Alberta Edmonton, Can.: [Google Scholar]
• Gong X , Van Soest A 2002 . Wage differentials and mobility in the urban labour market: a panel data analysis for Mexico. Labour Econ 9 : 513– 29 [Google Scholar]
• Haanwinckel D , Soares RR. 2016 . Workforce composition, productivity, and labor regulations in a compensating differentials theory of informality IZA Discuss. Pap. 9951, Inst. Labor Econ Bonn, Ger.: [Google Scholar]
• Hsieh CT , Klenow PJ. 2014 . The life cycle of plants in India and Mexico. Q. J. Econ. 129 : 1035– 84 [Google Scholar]
• Hsieh CT , Olken B. 2014 . The missing “missing middle.”. J. Econ. Perspect. 28 : 89– 108 [Google Scholar]
• Johnson S , Kaufmann D , Zoido-Lobaton P 1998 . Regulatory discretion and the unofficial economy. Am. Econ. Rev. 88 : 387– 92 [Google Scholar]
• Joubert C. 2015 . Pension design with a large informal labor market: evidence from Chile. Int. Econ. Rev. 56 : 673– 94 [Google Scholar]
• Kaplan DS , Piedra E , Seira E 2011 . Entry regulation and business start-ups: evidence from Mexico. J. Public Econ. 95 : 1501– 15 [Google Scholar]
• Keane MP , Wolpin KI. 1997 . The career decisions of young men. J. Political Econ. 105 : 473– 522 [Google Scholar]
• La Porta R , Shleifer A 2008 . The unofficial economy and economic development. Brook. Pap. Econ. Act. 105 : 473– 522 [Google Scholar]
• La Porta R , Shleifer A 2014 . Informality and development. J. Econ. Perspect. 28 : 109– 26 [Google Scholar]
• Levy S. 2008 . Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes: Social Policy, Informality, and Economic Growth in Mexico Washington, DC: Brook. Inst. Press [Google Scholar]
• Loayza NA. 1996 . The economics of the informal sector: a simple model and some empirical evidence from Latin America. Carnegie-Rochester Conf. Ser. Public Policy 45 : 129– 62 [Google Scholar]
• López JJ. 2017 . A quantitative theory of tax evasion. J. Macroecon. 53 : 107– 26 [Google Scholar]
• Lopez-Martin B. 2019 . Informal sector misallocation. Macroecon. Dyn. 23 : 3065– 98 [Google Scholar]
• Magnac T. 1991 . Segmented or competitive labour markets. Econometrica 59 : 165– 87 [Google Scholar]
• Maloney W. 1999 . Does informality imply segmentation in urban labor markets? Evidence from sectoral transitions in Mexico. World Bank Econ. Rev. 13 : 275– 302 [Google Scholar]
• Margolis DN , Navarro L , Robalino DA 2012 . Unemployment insurance, job search and informal employment IZA Discuss. Pap. 6660, Inst. Labor Econ Bonn, Ger.: [Google Scholar]
• McCaig B , Pavcnik N. 2018 . Export markets and labor allocation in a low-income country. Am. Econ. Rev. 108 : 1899– 941 [Google Scholar]
• Meghir C , Narita R , Robin JM 2015 . Wages and informality in developing countries. Am. Econ. Rev. 105 : 1509– 46 [Google Scholar]
• Monteiro J , Assunção JJ. 2012 . Coming out of the shadows? Estimating the impact of bureaucracy simplification and tax cut on formality in Brazilian microenterprises. J. Dev. Econ. 99 : 105– 15 [Google Scholar]
• Naritomi J. 2019 . Consumers as tax auditors. Am. Econ. Rev. 109 : 3031– 72 [Google Scholar]
• Ordonez JCL. 2014 . Tax collection, the informal sector, and productivity. Rev. Econ. Dyn. 17 : 262– 86 [Google Scholar]
• Paes de Barros R. 1988 . On the empirical content of the formal-informal labor market segmentation hypothesis Work. Pap., Econ. Res. Cent.–NORC, Univ Chicago, Chicago: [Google Scholar]
• Pagés C , Stampini M. 2009 . No education, no good jobs? Evidence on the relationship between education and labor market segmentation. J. Comp. Econ. 37 : 387– 401 [Google Scholar]
• Paz LS. 2014 . The impacts of trade liberalization on informal labor markets: a theoretical and empirical evaluation of the Brazilian case. J. Int. Econ. 92 : 330– 48 [Google Scholar]
• Perry G , Maloney W , Arias O , Fajnzylber P , Mason A , Saavedra-Chanduvi J 2007 . Informality: Exit or Exclusion Washington, DC: World Bank [Google Scholar]
• Peters M. 2019 . Heterogeneous mark-ups, growth and endogenous misallocation Unpublished manuscript, Yale Univ New Haven, CT: [Google Scholar]
• Piza C. 2018 . Out of the shadows? Revisiting the impact of the Brazilian SIMPLES program on firms' formalization rates. J. Dev. Econ. 134 : 125– 32 [Google Scholar]
• Pomeranz D. 2015 . No taxation without information: deterrence and self-enforcement in the value added tax. Am. Econ. Rev. 105 : 2539– 69 [Google Scholar]
• Ponczek V , Ulyssea G. 2019 . Is informality an employment buffer? Evidence from the trade liberalization in Brazil Unpublished manuscript, São Paulo Sch. Econ. São Paulo, Braz.: [Google Scholar]
• Prado M. 2011 . Government policy in the formal and informal sectors. Eur. Econ. Rev. 55 : 1120– 36 [Google Scholar]
• Pratap S , Quintin E. 2006 . Are labor markets segmented in developing countries? A semiparametric approach. Eur. Econ. Rev. 50 : 1817– 41 [Google Scholar]
• Quintin E. 2008 . Contract enforcement and the size of the informal economy. Econ. Theory 37 : 395– 416 [Google Scholar]
• Rajan RG , Zingales L. 1998 . Financial dependence and growth. Am. Econ. Rev. 88 : 559– 86 [Google Scholar]
• Rauch JE. 1991 . Modelling the informal sector formally. J. Dev. Econ. 35 : 33– 47 [Google Scholar]
• Rocha R , Ulyssea G , Rachter L 2018 . Do lower taxes reduce informality? Evidence from Brazil. J. Dev. Econ. 134 : 28– 49 [Google Scholar]
• Schneider F , Enste D. 2000 . Shadow economies: size, causes and consequences. J. Econ. Lit. 38 : 77– 114 [Google Scholar]
• Straub S. 2005 . Informal sector: the credit market channel. J. Dev. Econ. 78 : 299– 321 [Google Scholar]
• Ulyssea G. 2010a . The formal-informal labor market segmentation hypothesis revisited. Braz. Rev. Econom. 30 : 311– 34 [Google Scholar]
• Ulyssea G. 2010b . Regulation of entry, labor market institutions and the informal sector. J. Dev. Econ. 91 : 87– 99 [Google Scholar]
• Ulyssea G. 2018 . Firms, informality, and development: theory and evidence from Brazil. Am. Econ. Rev. 108 : 2015– 47 [Google Scholar]

Data & Media loading...

• Article Type: Review Article

Most Read This Month

Most cited most cited rss feed, power laws in economics and finance, the gravity model, the china shock: learning from labor-market adjustment to large changes in trade, microeconomics of technology adoption, financial literacy, financial education, and economic outcomes, gender and competition, corruption in developing countries, the economics of human development and social mobility, the roots of gender inequality in developing countries, weak instruments in instrumental variables regression: theory and practice.

The landscape of informal economy research: a systematic review of transient trends, pivot, and emerging pattern: is there a spatial turn?

• Published: 04 March 2022
• Volume 88 , pages 1059–1079, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

• Oluwole Soyinka 1 &
• Alain J. F. Chiaradia   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2417-0103 1  

518 Accesses

1 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

Informal economy (IE) activities contribute significantly to the contemporary urban dynamic. Multifaceted and prolific studies of IE are nearing 50 years. The concept of IE exists in diverse forms with discussion from different perspectives from a vast intellectual landscape. However, there is a lack of systematic review of IE literature knowledge domain evolution in relation to the broad spatial turn that has taken place in social sciences. The objective of this study is to investigate the landscape of IE research to explore and identify transient trend, pivot and emerging pattern of research front as markers of the evolution of knowledge of IE literature from a spatial turn perspective. A preliminary review establishes the platform for a systematic review. A scientometric semantic mapping of IE research extracted from 1157 IE related articles retrieved from the Scopus database provided a panoramic view identifying intellectually significant articles/concepts to understand the intellectual base and its dynamic. The top 12 ranked articles were examined in-depth to further explore the IE spatial turn. Trends analysis confirmed that the IE schools of thought overlap and identified research fronts specialities. The study showed that “spatial turn” is yet to become a focus of IE studies in terms of research strategies and analytical methods. The findings suggest that the unexplored IE spatially integrated development strategies could be adopted for future research direction, with deployment of spatial analysis techniques. The recommendations are relevant to academics, professionals, and government agencies.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save.

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Smart-City Development Paths: Insights from the First Two Decades of Research

Deviation, Transgression or Digression? The Informal City as the Dominant Phenomenon in the Zimbabwean Urban Economy

Knowledge evolution in transit-oriented development: a comparative bibliometric analysis of International versus Chinese publications

Abbott, J. (2002). A method-based planning framework for informal settlement upgrading. Habitat International, 26 (3), 317–333.

Article   Google Scholar  

Abelson, B., Varshney, K. R., & Sun, J. (2014). Targeting direct cash transfers to the extremely poor. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 20th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining.

Acuto, M., Dinardi, C., & Marx, C. (2019). Transcending (in) formal urbanism. Urban Studies, 56 (3), 475–487.

Ali, M. H., & Sulaiman, M. S. (2006). ̒Shaping the change—The causes and consequences of the informal settlements in Zanzibar̕. Paper presented at the Conference on ‘Shaping the Change’, Munich, Germany.

Alter Chen, M. (2005). Rethinking the informal economy: linkages with the formal economy and the formal regulatory environment (9291906891). Oxford Scholarship Online.

Amankwah-Amoah, J. (2019). Technological revolution, sustainability, and development in Africa: Overview, emerging issues, and challenges. Sustainable Development, 27 (5), 910–922.

Average, C. (2020). Contestations for urban space: Informality and institutions of disenfranchisement in Zimbabwe—The case of Masvingo City. GeoJournal, 85 (5), 1277–1289.

Bennett, M. L., Layard, A., & Hatcher, C. (2015). Illegal geographies of the state: the legalisation of a “squatter” settlement in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. International Journal of Law in the Built Environment .

Blank, Y., & Rosen-Zvi, I. (2010). Introduction: The spatial turn in social theory. Hagar, 10 (1), 3.

Google Scholar  

Bromley, R., & Wilson, T. D. (2018). Introduction: The urban informal economy revisited . SAGE Publications.

Callon, M., Courtial, J.-P., & Laville, F. (1991). Co-word analysis as a tool for describing the network of interactions between basic and technological research: The case of polymer chemsitry. Scientometrics, 22 (1), 155–205.

Chen, C. (2004). Searching for intellectual turning points: Progressive knowledge domain visualisation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101 (suppl 1), 5303–5310.

Chen, C. (2005). CiteSpace Quick Guide 1.2.

Chen, C. (2006). CiteSpace II: Detecting and visualising emerging trends and transient patterns in scientific literature. Journal of the American Society for Information Science Technology, 57 (3), 359–377.

Chen, C. (2016). CiteSpace: A practical guide for mapping scientific literature . Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated.

Chen, C. (2017). Science mapping: A systematic review of the literature. Journal of Data and Information Science, 2 (2), 1–40.

Chen, C., Ibekwe-SanJuan, F., & Hou, J. (2010). The structure and dynamics of cocitation clusters: A multiple-perspective cocitation analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61 (7), 1386–1409.

Chen, C., & Paul, R. J. (2001). Visualising a knowledge domain’s intellectual structure. Computer, 34 (3), 65–71.

Chen, C., & Song, M. (2019). Visualising a field of research: A methodology of systematic scientometric reviews. PLoS ONE, 14 (10), e0223994.

Chen, H., Zhao, G., & Xu, N. (2012). The Analysis of research hotspots and fronts of knowledge visualisation based on CiteSpace II. Paper presented at the International Conference on Hybrid Learning.

Chen, X., & Liu, Y. (2020). Visualisation analysis of high-speed railway research based on CiteSpace. Transport Policy, 85 , 1–17.

Chiodelli, F., et al. (2020). The production of informal space: A critical atlas of housing informalities in Italy between public institutions and political strategies. Progress in Planning , 100495.

Cirolia, L. R., & Scheba, S. (2019). Towards a multi-scalar reading of informality in Delft, South Africa: Weaving the ‘everyday’ with wider structural tracings. Urban Studies, 56 (3), 594–611. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098017753326

Cobo, M. J., López-Herrera, A. G., Herrera-Viedma, E., & Herrera, F. (2011). Science mapping software tools: Review, analysis, and cooperative study among tools. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62 (7), 1382–1402.

Coletto, D. (2019). Informal economy. In The Wiley Blackwell encyclopedia of urban and regional studies (pp. 1–8).

Darko, A., Chan, A. P., Adabre, M. A., Edwards, D. J., Hosseini, M. R., & Ameyaw, E. E. (2020). Artificial intelligence in the AEC industry: Scientometric analysis and visualisation of research activities. Automation in Construction, 112 , 103081.

Desai, R., McFarlane, C., & Graham, S. (2015). The politics of open defecation: Informality, body, and infrastructure in Mumbai. Antipode, 47 (1), 98–120. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12117

DeVries, D. N. (2018). Exploring the dangerous disconnect between perspectives, planning, policy, and practice towards informal traders in Durban, South Africa. Berkeley Planning Journal, 30 (1), 8. https://doi.org/10.5070/bp330137614

Di Raimo, A., Lehmann, S., & Melis, A. (2021). Informality through sustainability: Urban informality now . Routledge.

Etim, E., & Daramola, O. (2020). The informal sector and economic growth of South Africa and Nigeria: A comparative systematic review. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 6 (4), 134.

Goodchild, M. F., & Janelle, D. G. (2010). Toward critical spatial thinking in the social sciences and humanities. GeoJournal, 75 (1), 3–13.

Gould, R., Missimer, M., & Mesquita, P. L. (2017). Using social sustainability principles to analyse activities of the extraction lifecycle phase: Learnings from designing support for concept selection. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140 , 267–276.

Gumbo, T., & Moyo, I. (2021). On the temporal, spatial and structural linkages between informal and formal economic enterprises in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. GeoJournal . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-021-10409-2

Harris, R. (2019). Neighbourhood upgrading: A fragmented global history. Progress in Planning , 100432.

Harriss, J. C. (1990). Linkages between the formal and the informal sectors in developing countries: A review of literature .

Hart, K. (1970). 8.Small-scale entrepreneurs in Ghana and development planning. The Journal of Development Studies, 6 (4), 104–120.

Hart, K. (1973). Informal income opportunities and urban employment in Ghana. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 11 (1), 61–89.

Hartnett, A., & Dawdy, S. L. (2013). The archaeology of illegal and illicit economies. In Annual review of anthropology (Vol. 42, pp. 37–51).

He, Q. (1999). Knowledge discovery through co-word analysis. Library Trends , 48 (1), 133–159. Retrieved from https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/8267/librarytrendsv48i1i_opt.pdf

Hegazy, I. R. (2016). Informal settlement upgrading policies in Egypt: Towards improvement in the upgrading process. Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, 9 (3), 254–275.

Hilbert, M. (2016). Big data for development: A review of promises and challenges. Development Policy Review, 34 (1), 135–174.

ILO. (1972). Employment, incomes and equality: a strategy for increasing productive employment in Kenya . International Labour Office Geneva 1972. https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1972/72B09_608_engl.pdf

ILO. (2002). Decent work and the informal economy: Abstract of working papers .

ILO. (2018). ILO global estimate on international migrant workers—Result and methodology (2nd ed.). ILO Labour Migration & ILO Department of Statistics

Jagtap, S. (2019). Key guidelines for designing integrated solutions to support development of marginalised societies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 219 , 148–165.

Jin, Y., Ji, S., Li, X., & Yu, J. (2017). A scientometric review of hotspots and emerging trends in additive manufacturing. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 28 (1), 18–38.

Jones, S. A., Michelfelder, D., & Nair, I. (2017). Engineering managers and sustainable systems: The need for and challenges of using an ethical framework for transformative leadership. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140 , 205–212.

Kennett, P., & Mizuuchi, T. (2010). Homelessness, housing insecurity and social exclusion in China, Hong Kong, and Japan. City, Culture and Society, 1 (3), 111–118.

Lawanson, T. (2014). Illegal urban entrepreneurship? The case of street vendors in Lagos, Nigeria. Journal of Architecture & Environment, 13 (1), 45–60.

Liang, D., De Jong, M., Schraven, D., & Wang, L. (2021). Mapping key features and dimensions of the inclusive city: A systematic bibliometric analysis and literature study. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology , 1–20.

Lindell, I. (2019). Introduction: Re-spatialising urban informality: Reconsidering the spatial politics of street work in the global South. International Development Planning Review, 41 (1), 3–21.

Liu, H., Zhao, S., & Xin, O. (2019). Analysis on the evolution path and hotspot of knowledge innovation study based on knowledge map. Sustainability, 11 (19), 5528.

Logan, J. R. (2012). Making a place for space: Spatial thinking in social science. Annual Review of Sociology, 38 , 507–524.

Losby, J. L., Else, J. F., Kingslow, M. E., Edgcomb, E. L., Malm, E. T., & Kao, V. (2002). Informal economy literature review. ISED Consulting and Research .

Marx, C., & Kelling, E. (2019). Knowing urban informalities. Urban Studies, 56 (3), 494–509.

McFarlane, C. (2019). Thinking with and beyond the informal–formal relation in urban thought. Urban Studies, 56 (3), 620–623. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098018810603

Meagher, K. (2013). Unlocking the informal economy: A literature review on linkages between formal and informal economies in developing countries. Work. ePap, 27 .

Moher, D., Liberati, A., Tetzla, J., Altman, D.G., Group, T.P. (2009). Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: The PRISMA statement. PLOS Medicine, 6 , e1000097.

Nataraj, S., Perez-Arce, F., Kumar, K. B., & Srinivasan, S. V. (2014). The impact of labor market regulation on employment in low-income countries: A meta-analysis. Journal of Economic Surveys, 28 (3), 551–572.

Nederhood, C., Soman, S. & Marchio, N. (2020). Million neighborhoods. Retrieved January 20, 2022, from https://millionneighborhoods.org/#2/8.84/17.54

Olawumi, T. O., & Chan, D. W. (2018). A scientometric review of global research on sustainability and sustainable development. Journal of Cleaner Production, 183 , 231–250.

Pratt, A. (2019). Formality as exception. Urban Studies, 56 (3), 612–615.

Rekhviashvili, L., & Sgibnev, W. (2020). Theorising informality and social embeddedness for the study of informal transport. Lessons from the marshrutka mobility phenomenon. Journal of Transport Geography, 88 , 102386.

Sharma, P. B., & Adhikari, D. B. (2020). Informal economy and poverty dynamics: A review. Quest Journal of Management and Social Sciences, 2 (1), 168–180.

Sheller, M. (2017). From spatial turn to mobilities turn. Current Sociology, 65 (4), 623–639.

Smit, S., & Musango, J. K. (2015). Towards connecting green economy with informal economy in South Africa: A review and way forward. Ecological Economics, 116 , 154–159.

Soja, E. W. (1993). History, geography, modernity .

Soyinka, O. (2018). Urban informality and infrastructure planning: the study of Hong Kong SAR and lagos metropolis for sustainable urban design strategies. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,

Soyinka, O., & Siu, K. W. M. (2017). Urban Informality and Infrastructure Planning in Hong Kong and Lagos Metropolis: Professionals Perspectives. Paper presented at the International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics.

Soyinka, O., & Siu, K. W. M. (2018). Urban informality, housing insecurity, and social exclusion; concept and case study assessment for sustainable urban development. City, Culture and Society, 15 , 23–36.

Storper, M., & Scott, A. J. (2016). Current debates in urban theory: A critical assessment. Urban Studies, 53 , 1114–1136.

Tanasescu, A., Wing-tak, E. C., & Smart, A. (2010). Tops and bottoms: State tolerance of illegal housing in Hong Kong and Calgary. Habitat International, 34 (4), 478–484.

Tchamyou, V. S., Asongu, S. A., & Odhiambo, N. M. (2019). The role of ICT in modulating the effect of education and lifelong learning on income inequality and economic growth in Africa. African Development Review, 31 (3), 261–274.

UN-Habitat. (2015a). Habitat III Issue Papers, 18- Urban Infrastructure and Basic Services, Including Energy . New York

UN-Habitat. (2015b). Habitat III Issue Papers, 22- Informal Settlements . Retrieved from Published in New York:

UN Habitat. (2013). State of the World's Cities 2012/2013 prosperity of cities . Routledge, 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017: Routledge for United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat).

Walther, O. J., Howard, A. M., & Retaillé, D. (2015). West African spatial patterns of economic activities: Combining the ‘spatial factor’and ‘mobile space’approaches. African Studies, 74 (3), 346–365.

Warf, B., & Arias, S. (2008). The spatial turn: Interdisciplinary perspectives . Routledge.

Book   Google Scholar  

Webster, C. J., & Lai, L.W.-C. (2003). Property rights, planning and markets: managing spontaneous cities . Edward Elgar Publishing.

Williams, C. C., Shahid, M. S., & Martínez, A. (2016). Determinants of the level of informality of informal micro-enterprises: Some evidence from the City of Lahore, Pakistan. World Development, 84 , 312–325. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.09.003

Withers, C. W. (2009). Place and the" spatial turn" in geography and in history. Journal of the History of Ideas, 70 (4), 637–658.

World Bank. (2016). World development report 2016: Digital dividends . The World Bank.

Wu, F., Zhang, F., & Webster, C. (2013). Informality and the development and demolition of urban villages in the Chinese Peri-urban area. Urban Studies, 50 (10), 1919–1934. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098012466600

Zhang, L. (2009). China’s informal urbanisation: Conceptualisation, dimensions and implications. Post-Communist Economies, 21 (2), 203–225. https://doi.org/10.1080/14631370902778583

Zhao, L., Tang, Z., & Zou, X. (2019). Mapping the knowledge domain of smart-city research: A bibliometric and scientometric analysis. Sustainability, 11 (23), 6648.

Zhongming, Z., Linong, L., Wangqiang, Z., & Wei, L. (2020). World Cities Report 2020: The value of sustainable urbanization . UN Habitat.

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support of The University of Hong Kong, Department of Urban Planning and Design and the constructive feedback of the editors and reviewers of this journal.

“This research was funded by The University of Hong Kong, ‘Walking With Wheels’ Project Grant Number 104004677.095740.01300.301.01 for initiatives on innovative research under the auspice of the Department of Urban Planning and Design.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Urban Planning and Design, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong, Room KB808, Knowles Building, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China

Oluwole Soyinka & Alain J. F. Chiaradia

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

OS and AC conceptualised the manuscript idea and designed the study. OS conducted the original draft writing. AC provided supervision and manuscript revisions. Finally both authors read, revised and agreed the published version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alain J. F. Chiaradia .

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest.

The authors declare that there are no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This article complied with all professional ethics of academic publication.

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 1524 kb)

Rights and permissions.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Soyinka, O., Chiaradia, A.J.F. The landscape of informal economy research: a systematic review of transient trends, pivot, and emerging pattern: is there a spatial turn?. GeoJournal 88 , 1059–1079 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10611-w

Download citation

Accepted : 07 February 2022

Published : 04 March 2022

Issue Date : February 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10611-w

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Informal economy
• Research front
• Intellectual base
• Scientometric analysis
• Spatial turn
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

RNSF - Management Information Tool

Page content, table of contents.

• 1.1 Introduction
• 1.2.1. Theories and concepts
• 1.2.2 Statistical definitions
• 1.2.3 Surveys and data collection in a historical perspective
• 1.3.1 Trends in employment
• 1.3.2 Characteristics of the informal economy
• 1.3.3 Contribution of the informal economy to GDP
• 2.1.1 Global and regional strategies for livelihoods with attention to social inclusion
• 2.1.2 Advocacy Methods on IE legal and policy framework development
• 2.1.3 Supportive legal frameworks development, adoption and implementation
• 2.1.4. Identification of relevant policy frameworks and development of appropriate actions
• 2.1.5. Key elements in policy frameworks identification
• 2.1.6. Improvement of impact of policy frameworks
• 2.1.7 Institution and capacity strengthening on IE
• 2.1.8 Organising informal economy groups
• 2.1.9 Value Chains and adding value to value chain components
• 2.1.10. Improving linkages between formal and informal economy
• 2.1.11 Coordination and sustainability planning
• 2.2.1 Promotion and implementation of decent work
• 2.2.2 Formalising work in IE
• 2.2.3 OSH implementation in IE
• 2.2.4 Environment and sustainable management and the Informal Economy
• 2.3.1 Social Behaviour Change Communications (SBCC)
• 2.3.2 Entrepreneurship: Capacity strengthening on economic activities
• 2.3.3. Information Technology (IT) and enhancing of livelihoods of people dependent on the IE
• 2.3.4. Leadership, life skills, empowerment training, literacy/numeracy
• 2.3.5 Micro finance
• 2.3.6. Vocational education/skills training
• 2.3.7. Labour market analysis to determine types of education/training provided
• 2.4.1 Social dialogue and IE
• 2.4.2. Social inclusion promotion (awareness raising on social inclusion in IE)
• 2.4.3. Social protection
• 2.4.4. Improving food security through enhancing livelihoods of people dependent on IE
• 2.4.5. Strengthening IE with attention to gender issues
• 2.4.6. Strengthening IE with attention to youth and children
• 2.4.7. Strengthening IE with attention to people affected by HIV
• 2.4.8. Strengthening IE with attention to people with disabilities
• 2.4.9. Strengthening IE with attention to the elderly
• 2.4.10. Strengthening IE with attention to migrants, refugees, trafficked persons
• 2.4.11. Strengthening IE with attention to general or other specific vulnerable groups
• 3.1.1 GOOD PRACTICES - Global and regional strategies for livelihoods with attention to social inclusion
• 3.1.2 GOOD PRACTICES - Advocacy Methods on IE legal and policy framework development
• 3.1.3 GOOD PRACTICES - Supportive legal frameworks development, adoption and implementation
• 3.1.4. GOOD PRACTICES - Supportive policy frameworks development, adoption and implementation
• 3.1.5. GOOD PRACTICES - Macro-economic approaches identified to stimulate IE and formalisation as appropriate
• 3.1.6. GOOD PRACTICES - IE statistics and use to inform enhancing of livelihoods of those dependent on the informal economy, with special attention to social inclusion.
• 3.1.7 GOOD PRACTICES - Labour market statistics to inform enhancing of livelihoods of those dependent on the informal economy, with special attention to social inclusion strategies.
• 3.1.8 GOOD PRACTICES - Education/vocational/skills statistics to inform enhancing of livelihoods of those dependent on the informal economy, with special attention to social inclusion.
• 3.1.9 GOOD PRACTICES - Institution and capacity strengthening on IE
• 3.1.10. GOOD PRACTICES - Linkages between formal and informal economy
• 3.1.11. GOOD PRACTICES - Coordination and sustainability planning
• 3.2.1. GOOD PRACTICES - Promotion and implementation of decent work, including through implementation of international labour standards, national labour laws in IE
• 3.2.2 GOOD PRACTICES - Formalising work in IE
• 3.2.3 GOOD PRACTICES - Occupational safety and health (OSH) implementation in IE
• 3.2.4 GOOD PRACTICES - Environment and sustainable management and the IE
• 3.3.1 GOOD PRACTICES - Social Behaviour Change Communications (SBCC)
• 3.3.2 GOOD PRACTICES - Entrepreneurship: Capacity strengthening on starting, improving, growing economic activities
• 3.3.3. GOOD PRACTICES - Information Technology (IT) and enhancing of livelihoods of those dependent on IE, with special  attention to social inclusion
• 3.3.4. GOOD PRACTICES - Leadership, life skills, empowerment training, literacy/numeracy
• 3.3.5. GOOD PRACTICES - Micro finance
• 3.3.6. GOOD PRACTICES - Vocational education/skills training
• 3.4.1. GOOD PRACTICES - Social dialogue and IE
• 3.4.2. GOOD PRACTICES - Statistics on vulnerable groups and use to enhance the livelihoods of those dependent on the  informal economy, with special attention to social inclusion strategies
• 3.4.3. GOOD PRACTICES - Social inclusion promotion (awareness raising on social inclusion in IE)
• 3.4.4. GOOD PRACTICES - Social protection
• 3.4.5 GOOD PRACTICES - Improving food security through enhancing the livelihoods of those dependent on IE, with special  attention to social inclusion
• 3.4.6 GOOD PRACTICES - Strengthening IE with attention to gender issues: Women, Role of men to support women in IE
• 3.4.7 GOOD PRACTICES - Strengthening IE with attention to youth and children   
• 3.4.8 GOOD PRACTICES -Strengthening IE with attention to people affected by HIV  
• 3.4.9 GOOD PRACTICES - Strengthening IE with attention to people with disabilities  
• 3.4.10 GOOD PRACTICES - Strengthening IE with attention to the elderly
• 3.4.11. GOOD PRACTICES - Strengthening IE with attention to: Migrants, Refugees, Trafficked persons
• 3.4.12. GOOD PRACTICES - Strengthening IE with attention to other vulnerable people
• INTRODUCTION: summary of most signifcant policy debates
• 4.1.1 Context descriptors
• 4.1.2 Empirical versus normative approaches to the informal economy
• 4.1.3 Explicit versus implicit focus on the informal economy
• 4.1.4 Approaches of some donors and organisations
• 4.1.5 Conclusions
• 4.1.6 References
• 4.2.1 Taxing the informal activities
• 4.2.2 Upgrading the informal activities within the value chain
• 4.2.3 Organising the populations dependent on the informal economy
• 4.3.1 Social Protection
• 4.3.2 Technical and vocational skills enhancement
• 4.3.3 Finance
• 5. RNSF research volumes

2. Key research Questions on the Informal Economy

The research and monitoring and evaluation matrix is a supplement to the Research Network Support Facility (RNSF) Logical Framework as included in the ARS Progetti Organisation and Methodology document. 

For each research question, and as relevant, the RNSF project analysed:

• Key strategies from global, regional, and (sub)national strategies to micro level (in the case of entrepreneurs their business approaches)
• Identify what works (GP)
• What does not work or only works somewhat
• Challenges faced and if/how they are overcome
• New trends and how they are being implemented

Research Question: 2.1 Enabling environment

What are the key ways to successfully support the enabling environment at national and sub-national level for enhancing the livelihoods of those dependent on the informal economy, with special attention to social inclusion? This includes legal and policy framework development, institution and capacity strengthening as well as coordination.

Research Question: 2.2 Decent work and enterprise growth

What key elements have been proven to contribute to successful formalisation of growth oriented informal economy enterprises and that help ensure informal economy decent work conditions?

Research Question: 2.3 Direct actions

What are the key proven direct actions at local level that contribute to the successful enhancement of livelihoods and working conditions for those working in informal economy enterprises with special attention to social inclusion?

Research Question: 2.4  Approaches to enhance livelihoods, equity and inclusion  

What innovative approaches do national and international entities use to enhance livelihoods,  equity and inclusion of people dependent on the informal economy?

In addition: what are the new strategies adopted by people relying on informal economy activities themselves?

Note: This can include the identification of new practices and dynamics that DEVCO or other main organisations operating in (inter)national cooperation for development are currently supporting (or may support during the RNSF project implementation period).

Data is mostly based on analysis of literature, interviews with key informants, analysis of the 17 new projects in 13 countries, analysis of at least 33 completed EC funded projects.

For each sub-question that requires identification of GP and LL, at least 5 GP and/or LL were identified. Each of these GP and/or LL meet the following criteria:

Rosenberg Research: Canada’s looming immigration reversal and what it means for interest rates, fixed income and the loonie

Canada’s immigration-driven population surge of recent years has provided an enormous boost to economic growth, labour force activity and employment gains – single-handedly keeping the country out of a technical recession.

However, the immigration uplift to the Canadian economy is soon to expire, with Ottawa aiming to significantly reduce the share of temporary residents in the population by 2027. The economic implications of lower net migration will be significant.

That will come alongside more downside to inflation, and less pressure on housing affordability. Most importantly, as yearly population growth slows to less than 1 per cent from 2025 to 2027 on average (from the current 3.2 per cent), our research shows that the neutral rate will decline to around 2 per cent from the current estimate of 2.75 per cent (and compared to 2.625 per cent for the U.S.). (The neutral rate, also known as the Rstar, is the interest rate consistent with noninflationary growth.)

Canada’s population grew by 3.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2024 compared to a year ago (an additional 1.3 million people), with an increase in temporary residents (temporary workers, students and asylum seekers) accounting for two-thirds of this growth (800,000 newcomers). Over the past three years alone, the country has seen a net increase of close to 1.5 million temporary residents – from 1.3 million in mid-2021 to 2.8 million as of the 2024 second quarter. While this has helped Canada escape a recession by boosting spending (newcomers were responsible for around 30 per cent of consumption growth last year) and filling labour shortages, it has also resulted in higher rent and home prices.

Earlier this year, Ottawa announced a plan for a significant cut in temporary residents – from 6.8 per cent of the population (as of the 2024 second quarter) to 5.0 per cent by 2027. Such a reduction corresponds to a roughly 25-per-cent decline (700,000) in non-permanent residents and requires fast and drastic actions – these measures are also subject to change with a federal election coming by the end of 2025. While some temporary residents will shift out of that category by receiving permanent residency over the following years, that will not be enough to get the share of non-permanent residents to 5 per cent. The only way to achieve the target Ottawa set is for a portion of temporary residents to leave the country. The latest population projections by Statistics Canada seem to take into account the 5-per-cent target and estimate that there will be a net decline of 640,000 temporary residents by 2027, with each year resulting in a net outflow of more than 200,000.

Anne Michèle Meggs: Despite moving to limit temporary immigrants, Canada’s policy lacks vision

Such a decrease in newcomers would mean that population growth will average a little less than 1 per cent annually between 2025 and 2027 – compared to the current norm of 3 per cent.

The economic implications are mixed; while reducing immigration growth is necessary to give the economy a break from its negative impact on housing affordability and overburdening health systems, it will also expose some pre-existing underlying weaknesses in the Canadian economy.

A slowdown in population growth will lead to a 30-basis-point decline in growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) due to an immediate reduction in overall spending. As of the 2024 first quarter, GDP is up 0.5 per cent from last year (in volume terms), well below the 3-per-cent annual increase in population. So, on a population-adjusted basis, the economy is actually contracting – with real GDP per capita down 2.6 per cent year-over-year, the fifth yearly decline in a row. With the full effect of rate hikes yet to kick in (they operate with 12- to 18- month lags), the future is not looking great for economic growth without the demand-side support from rising immigration. The Bank of Canada’s estimate of annual real GDP growth of more than 2 per cent until 2026 remains overly optimistic.

Employment growth will take a big hit, but the outlook on the unemployment rate and wages are mixed. As the growth in available labour supply declines (and likely at a faster pace than job vacancies), less slack in the jobs market will exert some upward pressure on wage growth, but the downside risk remains intact, with wages still playing catch-up to the recent decline in inflation.

Slower immigration growth will alleviate some pressure on the housing market; however, the unaffordability crisis will not be solved until housing starts fully catch up to population growth. The pace of immigration has dramatically surpassed the absorptive capacity of the housing market – since 2022, there have been around 650,000 housing starts, while the population is up approximately 2.5 million.

Meanwhile, the disinflation momentum is set to continue as slower demand growth for goods and services will result in lower prices, likely dragging inflation below the lower band of the BoC ’s target range of 1 to 3 per cent. Inflation is already running at 2.7 per cent year-over-year, within the control range set by the bank – and with a negative output gap set to persist till 2026 (currently at 1.6 per cent), shelter prices coming down, and consumer spending losing steam, inflation in Canada is heading toward flat.

The main driver behind the neutral rate in Canada has been the increase in the labour force, which was made possible by immigration. With immigration growth taking a step back, the working-age population and labour force will expand slower than before

For investors, the key take-away here is that the Canadian neutral rate will likely drop to around 2 per cent (from the current estimated level of 2.75 per cent) as a result of slower population growth – more than half a percentage point below the 2.625 per cent estimated in the U.S. Therefore, the BoC will need to cut much deeper (and likely faster) than the Federal Reserve in the U.S., just to get monetary policy back to a neutral stance. This not only creates room for more rate cuts and builds a bullish case for Canadian fixed income but it also signals weakness for the Canadian dollar.

Atakan Bakiskan is an economist with Rosenberg Research

Be smart with your money. Get the latest investing insights delivered right to your inbox three times a week, with the Globe Investor newsletter. Sign up today .

Report an editorial error

Report a technical issue

Editorial code of conduct

Follow related authors and topics

• Economy Follow You must be logged in to follow. Log In Create free account
• Ottawa Follow You must be logged in to follow. Log In Create free account

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following .

Interact with The Globe

Adani Group rocked by Hindenburg allegations against SEBI

Adani Group’s stock value plunged by nearly $150bn after Hindenburg Research’s first report in January 2023.

Adani Group, the Indian conglomerate rocked by a Hindenburg Research report last year, has faced another heavy share selloff after the short seller accused the head of India’s market regulator of having links to offshore funds also used by the group.

About $2.43bn, or 1 percent, was wiped off the market value of Adani companies by the end of the trading day on Monday although that was a substantial recovery from earlier losses of more than $13bn.

Keep reading

Has ukraine’s incursion into russia’s kursk changed dynamics of the war, what does sheikh hasina’s resignation mean for india-bangladesh relations, in pictures: best photo stories from paris olympics 2024, why are there questions about arrests of mexico’s sinaloa cartel leaders.

The battle between Hindenburg Research and Adani Group began 18 months ago when the United States-based short seller alleged Adani improperly used tax havens, accusations the group denied again on Sunday, saying its overseas holding structure was fully transparent.

Citing whistleblower documents, Hindenburg said on Saturday that Madhabi Puri Buch, chairperson of the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) since 2022, has a conflict of interest in the Adani matter due to previous investments.

Buch said the report’s allegations were baseless, and in a separate statement, the regulator said allegations made by Hindenburg Research against the Adani Group have been duly investigated.

Shares in the group’s flagship firm, Adani Enterprises, closed out Monday 1.1 percent lower while Adani Ports, Adani Total Gas, Adani Power, Adani Wilmar and Adani Energy Solutions were down between 0.6 percent and 4.2 percent. Only Adani Green bucked the trend, closing 1 percent higher.

“The allegations are coming for the second time. Lot of investigations have happened over the last year and a half. This is a temporary, knee-jerk reaction. Things will get back to normalcy,” said Sunny Agrawal, head of fundamental equity research at SBICAPS Securities.

Investments from Abu Dhabi-based International Holding Company and US boutique investment firm GQG Partners have helped restore some investor confidence since Hindenburg’s first report in January 2023 with Adani Group’s share value losses narrowing to about $32.5bn from $150bn in the immediate aftermath.

Buch termed Hindenburg’s allegations an attempt at “character assassination” after the regulator’s enforcement action and “show cause” notice to the short seller for violating Indian rules. A show cause notice signals an intention to take disciplinary action if satisfactory explanations are not provided.

‘Gravely compromised’

Adani Enterprises is looking to launch a $1bn share sale by mid-September, having shelved a record $2.5bn offer in the wake of Hindenburg’s first set of allegations. Adani Energy raised $1bn from US investors and sovereign wealth funds this month.

“We will likely see a short- to medium-term sentiment impact on Adani stocks, especially as retail investors are pressurised by the allegations made against SEBI,” said Kranthi Bathini, director of equity strategy at WealthMills Securities.

As the latest allegations gained political traction, ruling Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker Ravi Shankar Prasad said: “Instead of giving a response to the SEBI show cause notice, Hindenburg has issued this report, which is a baseless attack.”

“The SEBI and the family [of Buch] have responded. We don’t have anything to add to that,” he told reporters.

However, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said on X: “The integrity of SEBI, the securities regulator entrusted with safeguarding the wealth of small retail investors, has been gravely compromised by the allegations against its chairperson.”

How to cite ChatGPT

Use discount code STYLEBLOG15 for 15% off APA Style print products with free shipping in the United States.

We, the APA Style team, are not robots. We can all pass a CAPTCHA test , and we know our roles in a Turing test . And, like so many nonrobot human beings this year, we’ve spent a fair amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about issues related to large language models, artificial intelligence (AI), AI-generated text, and specifically ChatGPT . We’ve also been gathering opinions and feedback about the use and citation of ChatGPT. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and shared ideas, opinions, research, and feedback.

In this post, I discuss situations where students and researchers use ChatGPT to create text and to facilitate their research, not to write the full text of their paper or manuscript. We know instructors have differing opinions about how or even whether students should use ChatGPT, and we’ll be continuing to collect feedback about instructor and student questions. As always, defer to instructor guidelines when writing student papers. For more about guidelines and policies about student and author use of ChatGPT, see the last section of this post.

Quoting or reproducing the text created by ChatGPT in your paper

If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.

Unfortunately, the results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications , with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating. Quoting ChatGPT’s text from a chat session is therefore more like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper.

When given a follow-up prompt of “What is a more accurate representation?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that “different brain regions work together to support various cognitive processes” and “the functional specialization of different regions can change in response to experience and environmental factors” (OpenAI, 2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Creating a reference to ChatGPT or other AI models and software

The in-text citations and references above are adapted from the reference template for software in Section 10.10 of the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020, Chapter 10). Although here we focus on ChatGPT, because these guidelines are based on the software template, they can be adapted to note the use of other large language models (e.g., Bard), algorithms, and similar software.

The reference and in-text citations for ChatGPT are formatted as follows:

• Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
• Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

Let’s break that reference down and look at the four elements (author, date, title, and source):

Author: The author of the model is OpenAI.

Date: The date is the year of the version you used. Following the template in Section 10.10, you need to include only the year, not the exact date. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.

Title: The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference, as shown in the template. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers.

The version number is included after the title in parentheses. The format for the version number in ChatGPT references includes the date because that is how OpenAI is labeling the versions. Different large language models or software might use different version numbering; use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.

Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. References for a number of common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of a reference for ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.

Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. This is the case for ChatGPT. The URL for ChatGPT is https://chat.openai.com/chat . For other models or products for which you may create a reference, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).

Other questions about citing ChatGPT

You may have noticed the confidence with which ChatGPT described the ideas of brain lateralization and how the brain operates, without citing any sources. I asked for a list of sources to support those claims and ChatGPT provided five references—four of which I was able to find online. The fifth does not seem to be a real article; the digital object identifier given for that reference belongs to a different article, and I was not able to find any article with the authors, date, title, and source details that ChatGPT provided. Authors using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for research should consider making this scrutiny of the primary sources a standard process. If the sources are real, accurate, and relevant, it may be better to read those original sources to learn from that research and paraphrase or quote from those articles, as applicable, than to use the model’s interpretation of them.

We’ve also received a number of other questions about ChatGPT. Should students be allowed to use it? What guidelines should instructors create for students using AI? Does using AI-generated text constitute plagiarism? Should authors who use ChatGPT credit ChatGPT or OpenAI in their byline? What are the copyright implications ?

On these questions, researchers, editors, instructors, and others are actively debating and creating parameters and guidelines. Many of you have sent us feedback, and we encourage you to continue to do so in the comments below. We will also study the policies and procedures being established by instructors, publishers, and academic institutions, with a goal of creating guidelines that reflect the many real-world applications of AI-generated text.

For questions about manuscript byline credit, plagiarism, and related ChatGPT and AI topics, the APA Style team is seeking the recommendations of APA Journals editors. APA Style guidelines based on those recommendations will be posted on this blog and on the APA Style site later this year.

Update: APA Journals has published policies on the use of generative AI in scholarly materials .

We, the APA Style team humans, appreciate your patience as we navigate these unique challenges and new ways of thinking about how authors, researchers, and students learn, write, and work with new technologies.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Related and recent

Comments are disabled due to your privacy settings. To re-enable, please adjust your cookie preferences.

APA Style Monthly

Subscribe to the APA Style Monthly newsletter to get tips, updates, and resources delivered directly to your inbox.

Welcome! Thank you for subscribing.

APA Style Guidelines

Browse APA Style writing guidelines by category

• Abbreviations
• Bias-Free Language
• Capitalization
• In-Text Citations
• Italics and Quotation Marks
• Paper Format
• Punctuation
• Research and Publication
• Spelling and Hyphenation
• Tables and Figures

Full index of topics