Contenu du sommaire : L'économie informelle dans les pays en développement : déterminants, genre et dynamiques de l'emploi

Informal or petty commodity production revisited 40 years later In the early 1970s, we participated in the debates on the informal sector initiated by Hart for Ghana (1971) and the ILO report concerning Kenya (1972) and we conducted several field surveys in Africa. In this paper, we first recall the founding debates, concerning petty commodity production. Then we look where we stand 40 years later, both in terms of theoretical analyses and performance of the "informal". Beyond the expansion of the informal, there is propinquity of the questions and results, while the global and national context of less developed countries has experienced a serious change. We take the African continent as an illustration.

The informal sector and employment segmentation in Bejaia (Algeria) : determinants and earnings functions We identify the determinants of access to informal employment thanks to a multinomial logit, and we estimate the earnings functions of informal employees ; we use two samples (1252 and 2026 workers) drawn from the two households surveys (2007 and 2012) we conducted in the region of Bejaia in Algeria. The demographic characteristics (age, gender and marital status) and weak human capital determine people's access to the informal sector. The estimated earnings function of informal workers highlights the role of professional experience, age of employees, gender and industry in the determination of income. Differences in human capital and demographic profiles between formal and informal workers reinforce the thesis of the labour market segmentation.

Characteristics and determinants of women's informal employment in Algeria : the case of Bejaia We study women's activity in Algeria upon a sample of 783 active women drawn from a household survey implemented in Bejaia in 2012. Thanks to a multinomial logit model and a series of earnings functions, we identify the determinants of access and earnings of women in the various formal and informal segments of the labor market. The low education level increases the likelihood of integrating the informal sector. This confirms the hypothesis of segmentation of the labor market and emphasizes the existence of a livelihood segment within the informal sector.

Informal entrepreneurship and gender in Madagascar : the role of sharing norms and domestic responsibilities in the performance gap Using a sample of informal entrepreneurs in Antananarivo, we add new evidence on the magnitude of the gender performance gap. After controlling for business and entrepreneur characteristics, we investigate the role of sharing norms and gender-differentiated allocation of time within the household in the gender performance gap, by estimating their effect on the firm technical inefficiency. Only male entrepreneurs seem subject to pressure to redistribute from the distant network. Women working at home feel negatively the burden of their own community due to intense social norms and obligations in their workplace but also to domestic chores and responsibilities.

Transitions between formal and informal sectors in Vietnam over the business cycle This paper contributes to fill the knowledge gap on the micro dynamics of the informal sector by addressing three issues : (1) transition patterns of household businesses between formal and informal sectors ; (2) factors associated with the decision of formalization, and (3) factors associated with the largely unknown process of informalization. It combines a unique panel data, representative of the Vietnamese urban informal sector, with a complementary qualitative research. The major result is that the informal sector plays simultaneously the role of buffer, informalization being essentially a cost-reduction strategy, and incubator, as more promising businesses choose to join the formal sector.

The informal micro and small enterprises in Egypt : a cross-section analysis Despite the socioeconomic importance of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Egypt, most of them are running on an informal basis. This paper uses an instrumental variable approach to estimate the impact of informality on the performance of 5000 Egyptian MSEs in 2003. The results of our Probit model show that the productivity increases when the firm operates formally. However, this positive effect is subject to the improvement of MPEs' human & financial capitals. These findings highlight the importance of formalization policies.

The shadow Economy in Haiti : a counter-cyclical impact on GDP ? We use a MIMIC model to estimate the size of shadow economy in Haiti as a share of GDP. The econometric modeling encapsulates nine causal variables and two indicators over the period 2000-2010. It shows that the fall in GDP, the rise in taxes and government expenditures and increasing inflation are the main factors that influence the growth of the shadow economy. This growth of the shadow economy has a knock-on effect on the unemployment rate during these last ten years. From 2007 to 2010, worse is the GDP growth per annum and better is the growth of the shadow economy ; thus, suggesting that the latter may be counter-cyclical.