The Effect of Taxation on Informal Employment

The Effect of Taxation on Informal Employment PDF Author: Fabián Slonimczyk
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The 2001 Russian tax reform reduced average tax rates for the personal income tax and the payroll or social tax. It also made the tax structure more regressive. Because individuals in the lower income bracket were for the most part not affected, it is possible to estimate the effects of the reform using a differences-in-differences approach. I study the effect of the reform on informal employment. Informality is defined using information on employment registration and self-employment. Applying parametric and semi-parametric techniques, I find evidence that the tax reform led to a significant reduction in the fraction of informal employees. Among the different forms of informality I study, the reform seems to have had the strongest effect on the prevalence of informal irregular activities. I also document stronger effects on individuals who benefited from the largest reductions in tax rates. The strong response to the tax reform lends support to the hypothesis that informal and formal labor markets are well integrated. -- informal sector ; entrepreneurship ; tax reform ; difference-in-difference ; transition ; Russia

The Effect of Taxation on Informal Employment

The Effect of Taxation on Informal Employment PDF Author: Fabián Slonimczyk
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The 2001 Russian tax reform reduced average tax rates for the personal income tax and the payroll or social tax. It also made the tax structure more regressive. Because individuals in the lower income bracket were for the most part not affected, it is possible to estimate the effects of the reform using a differences-in-differences approach. I study the effect of the reform on informal employment. Informality is defined using information on employment registration and self-employment. Applying parametric and semi-parametric techniques, I find evidence that the tax reform led to a significant reduction in the fraction of informal employees. Among the different forms of informality I study, the reform seems to have had the strongest effect on the prevalence of informal irregular activities. I also document stronger effects on individuals who benefited from the largest reductions in tax rates. The strong response to the tax reform lends support to the hypothesis that informal and formal labor markets are well integrated. -- informal sector ; entrepreneurship ; tax reform ; difference-in-difference ; transition ; Russia

The Long Shadow of Informality

The Long Shadow of Informality PDF Author: Franziska Ohnsorge
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464817545
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
A large percentage of workers and firms operate in the informal economy, outside the line of sight of governments in emerging market and developing economies. This may hold back the recovery in these economies from the deep recessions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic--unless governments adopt a broad set of policies to address the challenges of widespread informality. This study is the first comprehensive analysis of the extent of informality and its implications for a durable economic recovery and for long-term development. It finds that pervasive informality is associated with significantly weaker economic outcomes--including lower government resources to combat recessions, lower per capita incomes, greater poverty, less financial development, and weaker investment and productivity.

The Russian Flat Tax Reform

The Russian Flat Tax Reform PDF Author: Anna Ivanova
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1451860358
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 49

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Book Description
Russia dramatically reduced its higher rates of personal income tax (PIT) in 2001 establishing a single marginal rate at the low level of 13 percent. In the following year, real revenue from the PIT actually increased by about 26 percent. This 'flat tax' experience has attracted much attention (and emulation) among policymakers, making it perhaps the most important tax reform of recent years. But it has been little studied. This paper asks whether the strong revenue performance of the PIT was itself a consequence of this reform, using both macro evidence and, in particular, micro-level data on the experiences of individuals and households affected by the reform to varying degrees. It concludes that there is no evidence of a strong supply side effect of the reform. Compliance, however, did improve quite substantially-by about one third according to our estimates-though it remains unclear whether this was due to the parametric reforms or to accompanying changes in enforcement.

The Informal Economy Revisited

The Informal Economy Revisited PDF Author: Martha Chen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429575386
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
This landmark volume brings together leading scholars in the field to investigate recent conceptual shifts, research findings and policy debates on the informal economy as well as future challenges and directions for research and policy. Well over half of the global workforce and the vast majority of the workforce in developing countries work in the informal economy, and in countries around the world new forms of informal employment are emerging. Yet the informal workforce is not well understood, remains undervalued and is widely stigmatised. Contributors to the volume bridge a range of disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, development economics, law, political science, social policy, sociology, statistics, urban planning and design. The Informal Economy Revisited also focuses on specific groups of informal workers, including home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers, to provide a grounded insight into disciplinary debates. Ultimately, the book calls for a paradigm shift in how the informal economy is perceived to reflect the realities of informal work in the Global South, as well as the informal practices of the state and capital, not just labour. The Informal Economy Revisited is the culmination of 20 years of pioneering work by WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing), a global network of researchers, development practitioners and organisations of informal workers in 90 countries. Researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and advocates will all find this book an invaluable guide to the significance and complexities of the informal economy, and its role in today’s globalised economy. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429200724, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Informal Employment in Emerging and Transition Economies

Informal Employment in Emerging and Transition Economies PDF Author: Solomon W. Polachek
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1780527861
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Informality and informal employment are wide-spread and growing phenomena in all regions of the world, particularly in low and middle income economies. This volume sheds light on the incidence and persistence of informality and the role of institutions and government regulations, and offers insights into issues such as how labor and tax regulations

In from the Shadow

In from the Shadow PDF Author: Truman G. Packard
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821395491
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
Examines the extent of unregulated informal employment and the size of the shadow economy, particularly in Europe's periphery. Presents a large body of evidence indicating that much more than the fairly mechanical incentive structures of taxation, social policy, and labour market regulation is at work in shaping the circumstances that lead people into the shadowy unregulated and untaxed markets for goods, services, and labour.

The Tax Elasticity of Formal Work in African Countries

The Tax Elasticity of Formal Work in African Countries PDF Author: Andrew D. McKay
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789292567033
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
A key policy problem in most developing countries is the size of the informal sector and its persistence over time. In need to increase their tax revenues, policy makers face a trade-off between decreasing tax rates (making formalizing potentially more attractive) and alternatively raising tax rates (potentially slowing down the formalization of the economy if people prefer informal employment or self-employment). Evidence on formal versus informal wages and job characteristics in different sectors and the impact of tax changes on the extent of informality in developing countries is, however, very limited. This paper estimates the tax responsiveness of the extensive margin of formality, that is the propensity to be a formal rather than informal worker, for four sub-Saharan African countries. Using repeated cross-sections of household data and applying grouping estimator techniques, this paper does not find robust effects of taxes on the extent of formal work, although in a pooled sample taxes appear to lower the share of formal workers in some specifications.

The Dynamics of Informal Employment

The Dynamics of Informal Employment PDF Author: Jane Ihrig
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiscal policy
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
The informal sector, which produces legal goods but does not comply with government regulations, is a functioning part of all economies, with a proportion of the labor force ranging from 17 percent in OECD countries to 60 percent in developing countries. Using a dynamic model that includes an informal sector, this paper illustrates the natural dynamics of the sector, describes how tax policy affects its size, and quantifies the costs of having it. Simulations yield movements in informal employment and output consistent with empirical observations. We find that the U.S. informal sector accounts for about 5 percent of U.S.labor hours and produces about 3 percent of U.S. GDP in steady state. Strategies for reducing the size of the sector are discussed. We find, however, that the distortion from this sector in terms of lifetime loss in an economy's capital stock, is minimal--supporting those who want to keep the informal sector as a functioning part of society.

Modelling the Effects of Corporate Taxation in the Underground Economy

Modelling the Effects of Corporate Taxation in the Underground Economy PDF Author: Konstantinos Eleftheriou
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This paper develops a two-sector search model of the labour market in which firms in one sector (the informal sector) evade profit taxes (underground economy). A comparative static analysis is employed to analyze the impact of corporate taxation on unemployment, occupational choice of individuals, mix of jobs, welfare of agents and the size of informal sector. The findings suggest that profit, firing and payroll taxation have the same effects on the above economic variables. However, if a certain condition does not hold, then the number of individuals searching for jobs only in the informal sector decreases with profit taxes. The above result implies that the adoption of active labour market policies, which accelerate the matching process between employers and employees, will mitigate the positive (negative) impact of taxation on the size of underground economy (wages).

Tax Policy and the Labor Market

Tax Policy and the Labor Market PDF Author: Ate Nieuwenhuis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiscal policy
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description