`A hopeful but nonetheless hard-hitting analysis of alternative economic spaces proliferating in the belly of the capitalist beast. In this book Leyshon, Lee and Williams convene fascinating studies ...of exchange, enterprise, credit and community. They invite us onto a new and promising discursive terrain where we can analyze, criticize and above all recognize actually existing economies of diversity in the wealthy countries of the West? - J K Gibson-Graham, Australian National University and University of Massachusetts, Amherst In the context of problems in the `new economy? - from dot.com start-ups, high-technology, and telecoms - Alternative Economic Spaces presents a critical evaluation of alternatives to the global economic mainstream. It focuses on the emergence of alternative economic geographies within developed economies and analyzes the emergence of alternative economic practices within industrialized countries. These include the creation of institutions like Local Exchange and Trading Systems, Credit Unions, and other social economy initiatives; and the development of alternative practices from informal work to the invention of consumption sites that act as alternatives to the monoply of the `big-box?, multi-chain retail outlets. Alternative Economic Spaces is a reconsideration of what is meant by the `economic? in economic geography; its objective is to bring together some of the ways in which this is being undertaken. The volume shows how the `economic? is being rethought in economic geography by detailing new economic geographies as they are emerging in practice.
The Coronavirus pandemic has led to restrictions on movement and workplace closures, resulting in governments offering temporary financial support to enterprises and workers. This paper evaluates a ...group unable to access this financial support, namely those in the undeclared economy, and possible policy responses. To identify the service industries and workers involved, a late 2019 Eurobarometer survey of undeclared work in Europe is reported. This reveals that undeclared work is particularly prevalent in the hospitality, retail and personal services sectors and identifies the population groups over-represented. Given that this undeclared workforce is now largely unable to work, it will be argued that providing access to temporary financial support, through a voluntary disclosure initiative, would be a useful initiative not only to provide the income support these enterprises and workers need but also to bring them out of the shadows and put them on the radar of the state authorities.
Given that 60 per cent of the global workforce is in the informal sector, this article develops a typology that classifies economies according to, firstly, where different countries sit on a ...continuum of informalization and, secondly, the character of their informal sectors. This is then applied to the economies of the 27 member states of European Union (EU-27). Finding a clear divide from east to west and south to north in the EU-27, with the more informalized and wage-based informal economies on the eastern/southern side and the less informalized and more own-account informal economies on the western/Nordic side, it is then revealed that formalization and more own-account informal sectors are significantly correlated with wealthier and more equal (as measured by the gini-coefficient) countries in which there is greater labour market intervention, higher levels of social protection and more effective redistribution via social transfers. The article concludes by discussing the implications for theory and practice.
In recent years, scholars adopting institutional theory have explained the tendency of entrepreneurs to operate in the informal sector to be a result of the asymmetry between formal institutions (the ...codified laws and regulations) and informal institutions (norms, values and codes of conduct). The aim of this article is to further advance this institutional approach by evaluating the varying degrees of informalization of entrepreneurs and then analysing whether lower levels of formalization are associated with higher levels of institutional asymmetry. To do this, a 2012 survey of the varying degrees of informalization of 300 entrepreneurs in Pakistan is reported. The finding is that 62% of entrepreneurs operate wholly informal enterprises, 31% largely informal and 7% largely formal enterprises. None operate wholly formal enterprises. Those displaying lower levels of formalization are shown to be significantly more likely to display higher levels of institutional asymmetry, exhibiting greater concerns about public sector corruption, possessing lower tax morality and being more concerned about high tax rates and the procedural and distributive injustice and unfairness of the authorities. These entrepreneurs tend to be lower-income, younger and less-educated entrepreneurs. The article concludes by discussing the theoretical and policy implications of these findings.
Recognizing that enterprises operate at varying levels of informality, this paper evaluates the determinants of their degree of informality. Reporting a 2012 survey of 300 informal microenterprises ...in the city of Lahore in Pakistan, the finding is that the key predictors of their level of informality are the characteristics of the entrepreneur and enterprise, rather than their motives or the wider formal and informal institutional compliance environment. Lower degrees of informality are associated with women, older, educated, and higher income entrepreneurs and older enterprises with employees in the manufacturing sector. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical and policy implications.
To advance understanding of the entrepreneurship process in developing economies, this article evaluates whether registered enterprises that initially avoid the cost of registration, and focus their ...resources on overcoming other liabilities of newness, lay a stronger foundation for subsequent growth. Analyzing World Bank Enterprise Survey data across 127 countries, and controlling for other firm performance determinants, registered enterprises that started up unregistered and spent longer operating unregistered are revealed to have significantly higher subsequent annual sales, employment, and productivity growth rates compared with those that registered from the outset. The theoretical and policy implications are then discussed.
Purpose
To tackle one of the main negative consequences of the sharing economy, namely, the growth of the informal sector, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate for the first time the impacts of ...the informal sector on the hospitality industry and then to discuss what needs to be done to prevent the further growth of the informal sector in this industry.
Design/methodology/approach
To evaluate the impacts of the informal sector on the hospitality industry, data are reported from 30 East European and Central Asian countries collected in 2013 in the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey.
Findings
The finding is that 23 per cent of hotels and restaurants in Eastern Europe and Central Asia report competing against unregistered or informal operators, and 13 per cent view these informal competitors as a major or severe obstacle. The larger the business, the greater is the likelihood that the informal sector is considered their biggest obstacle.
Practical implications
To prevent the further growth of the informal sector in the hospitality industry, regulation of the sharing economy will be required. To achieve this, it is shown that state authorities need to adopt both direct control measures that alter the costs of operating in the informal sector and the benefits and ease of operating formally, as well as indirect control measures that reduce the acceptability of operating in the informal sector.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to evaluate the impacts of the informal sector on the hospitality industry and to outline the policy measures required to prevent its further growth with the advent of the sharing economy.
To evaluate critically the dominant discourse that consumers acquiring goods and services in the informal economy are rational economic actors seeking a lower price, the results of a 2007 ...Eurobarometer survey involving 26,659 face-to-face interviews in 27 European Union member states form the basis for analysis. The finding is that achieving a lower price is the sole motive for just 44% of informal economy purchases, one of several rationales in 28% of transactions, and not a rationale in 28% of acquisitions. Consumers also use the informal economy to circumvent the shortcomings of the formal economy in terms of the availability, speed, and quality of goods and services provision, as well as for social and redistributive reasons, with multilevel mixed-effects logit regression analysis revealing how the prevalence of these rationales significantly varies across populations. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical and policy implications of the findings.
An authoritative introduction to economic activity and income outside of government regulation, taxation and observation. The books examines its importance and characteristics in developed, ...developing and transitional economies, and its role as a driver of economic growth.
The aim of this paper is to transcend the long-standing depiction that workers universally participate in the undeclared service economy out of necessity due to their exclusion from the formal labour ...market, by proposing and evaluating the existence of a dual undeclared labour market in the service sector composed of an 'upper-tier' of voluntary exit-driven and 'lower-tier' of exclusion-driven undeclared service sector workers. Reporting a 2019 Eurobarometer survey conducted in 28 European countries, a dual labour market in the undeclared service economy is validated. Three-quarters of undeclared service workers report either purely exit- or exclusion driven rationales. For every lower tier undeclared service worker, 6.7 are in the upper tier, with those in the voluntary exit-driven upper tier more likely to be older, self-employed, having spent time in full-time education, and to be living in Western Europe and Nordic countries. The theoretical and policy implications are then discussed.
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