Download or read book The Origins of Informality written by Charles B. Roger and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-02 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legal foundations of global governance are shifting. In addition to traditional instruments for resolving cross-border problems, such as treaties and formal international organizations, policy-makers are turning increasingly to informal agreements and organizations like the Group of Twenty, the Financial Stability Board, and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. A growing number of policy-makers view such weakly-legalized organizations as promising new tools of governance, arguing that informal bodies are faster and more flexible than their formal counterparts, and better-suited to the complex problems raised by deepening interdependence. Yet, equally, political scientists have puzzled over these international organizations. At present, we still know relatively little about these bodies, why they have become so important, and whether they are indeed capable of addressing the immense challenges faced by the global community. In The Origins of Informality, Charles Roger offers a new way of thinking about informal organizations, presents new data revealing their extraordinary growth over time and across regions, and advances a novel theory to explain these patterns. In contrast with existing approaches, he locates the drivers of informality within the internal politics of states, explaining how major shifts within the domestic political arenas of the great powers have projected outwards and reshaped the legal structure of the global system. Informal organizations have been embraced because they allow bureaucrats in powerful states to maintain autonomy over their activities, and can help politicians to circumvent domestic opponents of their foreign policies. Drawing on original quantitative data, interviews, and archival research, the book analyzes some of the most important institutions governing the global economy, showing how informality has helped domestic actors to achieve their narrow political goals-even when this comes at the expense of the institutions they eventually create. Ultimately, Roger claims, the shift towards informality has allowed the number of multilateral institutions to rapidly increase in response to global problems. But, at the same time, it has coincided with a decline in their quality, leaving us less prepared for the next global crisis.
Download or read book The Origins of Informality written by Charles B. Roger and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ground-breaking book explores the phenomenon of informal international organizations--weakly-legalized bodies that differ significantly from the formal institutions traditionally relied upon by the global community. It advances a new way of thinking about these organizations, presents new data revealing their extraordinary growth over time and across regions, and offers a novel account explaining why states have embraced them. Roger locates the origins of informality in major shifts occurring within the domestic political arenas of powerful states, explaining how these have projected outwards and reshaped the legal foundations of global governance. The book systematically tests this theory, presents detailed accounts of the forces behind some of the most important institutions governing the global economy, and draws out the policy implications of this account. While informality has allowed the number of multilateral institutions to grow, Roger argues, it has coincided with a decline in their quality, leaving us less prepared for the next global crisis.
Download or read book Understanding the Determinants of Economic Informality in Paraguay written by Michael J. Pisani and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-08-21 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For several years, the government of Paraguay has sought to address the issue of informality, both as a response to poverty reduction and a means to expand its tax base. While effort has been undertaken to describe informality, the government lacks the capacity and perhaps the will to analyze the phenomenon through a robust empirical lens. Hence, little is known about the informal economy beyond anecdotes, personal interactions, and description. This book is the first to comprehensively, rigorously, and empirically study the determinants of informality in Paraguay. This book is of vital interest to those studying the Paraguayan economy, development economics, Latin American economics, and informality.
Download or read book Linking the Formal and Informal Economy written by Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006-09-21 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of studies on formality and informality in developing countries, this volume contains contributions from anthropologists, economists, sociologists, and political scientists. It argues for moving beyond the formal-informal dichotomy, and offers information to develop guiding principles for intervention.
Download or read book The Long Shadow of Informality written by Franziska Ohnsorge and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2022-02-09 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality Volume 1 written by Alena Ledeneva and published by Saint Philip Street Press. This book was released on 2020-10-09 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alena Ledeneva invites you on a voyage of discovery, to explore society's open secrets, unwritten rules and know-how practices. Broadly defined as 'ways of getting things done', these invisible yet powerful informal practices tend to escape articulation in official discourse. They include emotion-driven exchanges of gifts or favours and tributes for services, interest-driven know-how (from informal welfare to informal employment and entrepreneurship), identity-driven practices of solidarity, and power-driven forms of co-optation and control. The paradox, or not, of the invisibility of these informal practices is their ubiquity. Expertly practised by insiders but often hidden from outsiders, informal practices are, as this book shows, deeply rooted all over the world, yet underestimated in policy. Entries from the five continents presented in this volume are samples of the truly global and ever-growing collection, made possible by a remarkable collaboration of over 200 scholars across disciplines and area studies. By mapping the grey zones, blurred boundaries, types of ambivalence and contexts of complexity, this book creates the first Global Map of Informality. The accompanying database is searchable by region, keyword or type of practice, so do explore what works, how, where and why! This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.
Download or read book The Informal Economy Revisited written by Martha Chen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanization written by Roberto Rocco and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-02 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanization investigates the mutual relationship between the struggle for political inclusion and processes of informal urbanization in different socio-political and cultural settings. It seeks a middle ground between two opposing perspectives on the political meaning of urban informality. The first, the ‘emancipatory perspective’, frames urban informality as a practice that fosters autonomy, entrepreneurship and social mobility. The other perspective, more critical, sees informality predominantly as a result of political exclusion, inequality, and poverty. Do we see urban informality as a fertile breeding ground for bottom-up democracy and more political participation? Or is urban informality indeed merely the result of a democratic deficit caused by governing autocratic elites and ineffective bureaucracies? This book displays a wide variety of political practices and narratives around these positions based on narratives conceived upon specific case cities. It investigates how processes of urbanization are politicized in countries in the Global South and in transition economies. The handbook explores 24 cities in the Global South, as well as examples from Eastern Europe and East Asia, with contributions written by a global group of scholars familiar with the cases (often local scholars working in the cities analyzed) who offer unique insight on how informal urbanization can be interpreted in different contexts. These contributions engage the extreme urban environments under scrutiny which are likely to be the new laboratories of 21st-century democracy. It is vital reading for scholars, practitioners, and activists engaged in informal urbanization.
Download or read book The Informal Economy written by Alejandro Portes and published by . This book was released on 1989-03 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York roofer requests payment in cash. A Bogota car mechanic sets up "shop" on a quiet side street. Four Mexican immigrants assemble semiconductors in a San Diego home. A Leningrad doctor sells needed medicine to a desperate patient. All are part of a growing worldwide phenomenon that is widely known but little understood. The informal or underground economy is thriving today, not only in the Third World countries where it was first reported and studied but also in Eastern Europe and the developed nations of the West. The Informal Economy is the first book to bring together studies from all three of these settings and to integrate them into a coherent theoretical framework. Taking an international perspective, the authors dispel a number of misconceptions about the informal economy. They make clear, for instance, that it is not solely a province of the poor. Cutting across social strata, it reflects a political and economic realignment between employers and workers and a shift in the regulatory mission of the government. Throughout, the authors' theoretical observations serve not only to unify material from diverse sources but also to map out directions for further research.
Download or read book Informality written by Guillermo Perry and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzes informality in Latin America, exploring root causes and reasons for and implications of its growth. This book uses two distinct but complementary lenses. It concludes that reducing informality levels and overcoming the "culture of informality" will require actions to increase aggregate productivity in the economy.
Download or read book Dimensions of Resilience in Developing Countries written by Jacques Charmes and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-02-11 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides the latest empirical data on the three forms of resilience: informality, solidarities and unpaid care-work. It uncovers and quantifies these three forms of resilience that are generally invisible or ill recognised, whereas these play a major role in the livelihoods of poor and vulnerable populations. The book shows how the slow but constant unveiling of these forms over the past four decades has gradually changed our vision of progress and development and is impacting the norms and concepts that shape our vision of the economy and society. The book also emphasizes the role of informal economy through explaining the origins of the concept, its definitions and the methods of data collection and measurement. As such the book will be of interest to students, researchers and policy makers in population studies, economics, and international development.
Download or read book Out of the Shadows written by Patricia Fernández-Kelly and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the beginning of scholarly writing about the informal economy in the mid-1970s, the debate has evolved from addressing survival strategies of the poor to considering the implications for national development and the global economy. Simultaneously, research on informal politics has ranged from neighborhood clientelism to contentious social movements basing their claims on a variety of social identities in their quest for social justice. Despite related empirical and theoretical concerns, these research traditions have seldom engaged in dialogue with one another. Out of the Shadows brings leading scholars of the informal economy and informal politics together to address how globalization has influenced local efforts to resolve political and economic needs&—and how these seemingly separate issues are indeed deeply related. In addition to the editors, contributors are Javier Auyero, Miguel Angel Centeno, Sylvia Chant, Robert Gay, Mercedes Gonz&ález de la Rocha, Jos&é Itzigsohn, Alejandro Portes, and Juan Manuel Ram&írez S&áiz.
Download or read book The Informal Economy in Developing Countries written by Jean-Pierre Cling and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-21 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Informality is ubiquitous in most developing countries. Understanding the informal economy is therefore of utmost importance from a political, economic and social point of view. Paradoxically, despite its economic importance, knowledge is extremely limited regarding the informal economy. It remains largely unrecognized by researchers, is neglected by politicians, and is even negatively perceived as it is meant to disappear with development. This book aims to amend this situation by presenting recent high level research which studies the informal sector and informal employment. Fresh research into this subject is presented through empirical analysis which covers Asia, Africa and Latin America. Each chapter relies on data and a detailed knowledge of the context of the countries studied in order to question the dominant schools of thought on the origins and causes of informality. The results provide interesting insights into the constraints faced by informal workers, the dynamics of the informal economy and its link with poverty issues. On the basis of the evidences provided by results adequate policies could be defined to address informality issues. The principal characteristics of the informal sector testify to some profound similarities between developing countries: low qualifications and the precariousness of jobs, mediocre incomes and working conditions, atomization of production units and lack of articulation with the formal economy, etc. This general statement does not contradict the observation that there is a high level of heterogeneity in the sector and in informal employment within each country, confirmed by several chapters in this work. In the absence of a sufficient number of job creations, the informal sector essentially constitutes a refuge for workers seeking and is here to stay in the short and medium term, even in emerging countries.
Download or read book Informality Labour Mobility and Precariousness written by Abel Polese and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2023-01-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the erosion of state legitimacy in Lebanon to the use of smartphones in Kyrgyzstan, from a Polish suburb to the music scene in Azerbaijan, this volume attempts to explain why, in a variety of world regions, a substantial number of people tend to ignore or act against state rules. We propose to look at informality beyond simplistic associations of the phenomenon with a single category such as "informal labour" or "corruption". By doing this, we propose to look for a correlation between the emergence, and persistence, of some informal practices and the quality of governance in a given area. We also suggest that a better understanding of the variety of informal practices present in a region can help conceptualising more adequate interventions and eventually improve the socio-economic conditions of its inhabitants.
Download or read book Cities From Scratch written by Brodwyn Fischer and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays challenges long-entrenched ideas about the history, nature, and significance of the informal neighborhoods that house the vast majority of Latin America's urban poor. Until recently, scholars have mainly viewed these settlements through the prisms of crime and drug-related violence, modernization and development theories, populist or revolutionary politics, or debates about the cultures of poverty. Yet shantytowns have proven both more durable and more multifaceted than any of these perspectives foresaw. Far from being accidental offshoots of more dynamic economic and political developments, they are now a permanent and integral part of Latin America's urban societies, critical to struggles over democratization, economic transformation, identity politics, and the drug and arms trades. Integrating historical, cultural, and social scientific methodologies, this collection brings together recent research from across Latin America, from the informal neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City, Managua and Buenos Aires. Amid alarmist exposés, Cities from Scratch intervenes by considering Latin American shantytowns at a new level of interdisciplinary complexity. Contributors. Javier Auyero, Mariana Cavalcanti, Ratão Diniz, Emilio Duhau, Sujatha Fernandes, Brodwyn Fischer, Bryan McCann, Edward Murphy, Dennis Rodgers
Download or read book The Origins of Postmodern Youth written by Reuven Kahane and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-11-27 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Regularization of Informal Settlements in Latin America written by Edesio Fernandes and published by Lincoln Inst of Land Policy. This book was released on 2011 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In large Latin American cities the number of dwellings in informal settlements ranges from one-tenth to one-third of urban residences. These informal settlements are caused by low income, unrealistic urban planning, lack of serviced land, lack of social housing, and a dysfunctional legal system. The settlements develop over time and some have existed for decades, often becoming part of the regular development of the city, and therefore gaining rights, although usually lacking formal titles. Whether they are established on public or private land, they develop irregularly and often do not have critical public services such as sanitation, resulting in health and environmental hazards. In this report from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, author Edesio Fernandes, a lawyer and urban planner from Latin America, studies the options for regularization of the informal settlements. Regularization is looked at through established programs in both Peru and Brazil, in an attempt to bring these settlements much needed balance and improvement. In Peru, based on Hernando de Soto's theory that tenure security triggers development and increases property value, from 1996 to 2006, 1.5 million freehold titles were issued at a cost of $64 per household. This did result in an increase of property values by about 25 percent, making the program cost effective. Brazil took a much broader and more costly approach to regularization by not only titling the land, but improving public services, job creation, and community support structures. This program in Brazil has had a cost of between $3,500 to $5,000 per household and has affected a much lower percent of the population. The report offers recommendations for improving regularization policy and identifies issues that must be addressed, such as collecting data with baseline figures to get a true evaluation of the benefit of programs established. Also, it shows that each individual informal settlement must have a customized plan, as a single approach will not work for each settlement. There is a need to include both genders for long-term effectiveness and to find ways to make the regularization self-sustaining financially. Any program must be closely monitored to insure the conditions are improved for the marginalized, as well as be sure it is not causing new informal settlements to be established.
