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 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.

Public Sector Debt Statistics

Public Sector Debt Statistics PDF Author: International Monetary Fund
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 161635156X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
The global financial crisis of recent years and the associated large fiscal deficits and debt levels that have impacted many countries underscores the importance of reliable and timely government statistics and, more broadly, public sector debt as a critical element in countries fiscal and external sustainability. Public Sector Debt Statistics is the first international guide of its kind, and its primary objectives are to improve the quality and timeliness of key debt statistics and promote a convergence of recording practices to foster international comparability and as a reference for national compilers and users for compiling and disseminating these data. Like other statistical guides published by the IMF, this one was prepared in consultation with countries and international agencies, including the nine organizations of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Finance Statistics (TFFS). The guide's preparation was based on the broad range of experience of our institutions and benefitted from consultation with national compilers of government finance and public sector debt statistics. The guide's concepts are harmonized with those of the System of National Accounts (2008) and the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual, Sixth Edition.

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).

Measuring the Informal Economy

Measuring the Informal Economy PDF Author: Mr.Gabriel Quiros-Romero
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513568248
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 38

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Book Description
This paper proposes a framework for measuring the informal economy that is consistent with internationally agreed concepts and methodology for measuring GDP. Based on the proposed framework, the informal economy “comprises production of informal sector units, production of goods for own final use, production of domestic workers, and production generated by informal employment in formal enterprises.” This proposed framework will facilitate preparation of estimates of the informal economy as a component of GDP.