|
on Informal and Underground Economics |
| By: | Gronwald, Victoria |
| JEL: | F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127939 |
| By: | Abbiati, Giovanni (University of Brescia); Battistin, Erich (University of Maryland); Monti, Paola (Fondazione Rodolfo DeBenedetti); Pinotti, Paolo (Bocconi University) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate a labor market integration program that fast-tracked asylum seekers into the Italian labor market through personalized job mentoring, placement assistance, and on-the-job training. Leveraging randomized assignment across reception centers and individual-level administrative records, we find effects on employment rates of $10$ percentage points, or $30\%$ over the baseline, over a 18-month period. The program also improved job quality through increased access to fixed-term and open-ended contracts. Subsidized internships were a critical pathway to transitioning participants into standard employment. Survey data indicate that these effects reflect a net increase in employment, rather than a shift from informal to formal jobs. We also document broader benefits on socioeconomic integration, including language proficiency and social networks with native Italians. |
| Keywords: | job mentoring, labor market integration, asylum seekers, socioeconomic integration |
| JEL: | J15 D04 C90 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17859 |
| By: | Clement Joubert; Kathleen G. Beegle |
| Abstract: | Although microenterprises are the most prevalent employer in Africa, boosting their productivity remains a development challenge. Theoretically, microenterprise business associations could foster technology, improve access to inputs, pool risk, ensure coordination, and facilitate credit for businesses. However, basic facts about their scope and roles are missing from the literature. This study establishes descriptive results to shed light on the nature of these networks in West Africa. First, fewer than 10 percent of informal business owners are members, although there is large industry variation. Second, members tend to be older and larger incumbent businesses with male owners, potentially stifling competition and entrenching gender gaps. Third, most associations are more aptly described as providers of excludable, industry-specific services than as vehicles for collective action and advocacy. Fourth, membership helps explain performance differences among observably similar businesses. Members are more productive, profitable, and financially included relative to similar non-members, although such premia only materialize in a few industries. |
| Date: | 2025–04–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11101 |
| By: | Arciniegas, Christian (University of Freiburg); Dumas, Christelle (University of Freiburg); Fahn, Matthias (University of Hong Kong) |
| Abstract: | We investigate labor exchange teams in rural communities, which are prevalent in many developing countries. We show theoretically that these teams are beneficial to employers, who can outsource the monitoring of workers. Team members are incentivized to exert high effort because any deviation would lead to the dissolution of their production team. Data from Tanzania support the model's predictions: members of labor exchange teams are more likely to obtain paid work and are often hired to perform tasks for which monitoring is costly. Consequently, this informal arrangement helps reduce moral hazard in the context of employment relationships. |
| Keywords: | information asymmetries, labor market, labor exchange, relational contracts, Tanzania |
| JEL: | D86 J43 J46 L14 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17852 |
| By: | Mallett, Richard |
| Abstract: | Motorcycle-taxis are one of the fastest ways to get around Kampala, Uganda, but they are also the most dangerous. Over the past decade, digital ride-hailing platforms have emerged on the city’s streets as a self-styled solution to dangerous working conditions and low earnings in the sector, promising a dual transformation of both livelihoods and safety standards. In this article, I draw on an analysis of speed and the forces that shape it to critically explore the ways in which concerted safety initiatives combine with the precarious logics of the platform economy to produce what I term a “speed trap” – a frenetic, incoherent set of circumstances that push and pull informal transport workers in different directions by compelling slowness and recklessness at the same time. As a result, ride-hailing emerges as a risky vehicle for road safety reform and an ambiguous addition to (already) high-risk urban infrastructure. |
| Keywords: | motorcycle taxis; platforms; ride-hailing; speed; Kampala |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2025–04–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127625 |
| By: | Guimbail, Laure |
| Abstract: | Résumé : Les applications de calcul d'itinéraire proposent aujourd'hui des informations de plus en plus précises aux voyageurs. Dans le contexte de la ville de Mexico, elles ont réussi à cartographier l’ensemble du réseau de transport informel, ce qui constitue une prouesse technologique jugée jusqu'alors impossible. Comment cette numérisation a-t-elle été rendue possible ? La numérisation des transports affecte-t-elle les dynamiques des acteurs en place ? Plus spécifiquement, le numérique et l'utilisation des données ont-ils un impact sur la modernisation et l'intégration des différents réseaux de transport par le biais des données ? En s’inscrivant dans les travaux récents de sociologie et de gouvernance urbaine, ce rapport vise à examiner dans quelle mesure la production de données et les big data perturbent les arrangements existants et conduisent à de nouvelles formes de gouvernance. Cette analyse compare les modalités de production de données de l'administration publique et celles des applications de calcul d'itinéraire. Elle s'appuie sur une enquête de terrain et des entretiens réalisés dans la ville de Mexico en mai 2023. L'enquête a permis de distinguer deux modalités de production de données parallèles, mais aussi complémentaires, qui entraînent deux doubles processus d'intégration et de rationalisation de la politique de transport. Abstract : The current generation of route planning applications provides travelers with an increasingly accurate source of information. In the context of Mexico City, these applications have been able to map the entire informal transport network, representing a significant technological advance that was previously considered impossible. How does the digitalisation of transport affect the dynamics of existing public and private actors? In particular, do digital technology and the use of data have an impact on the modernisation and integration of the different transport networks through data? Drawing on recent work in sociology and urban governance, this report aims to examine the extent to which data production and Big Data are disrupting existing arrangements and leading to new forms of governance. This analysis compares the ways in which data is produced by public authorities and by route planner applications. It is based on a field survey and interviews conducted in Mexico City in May 2023. The survey enabled us to distinguish two parallel, but also complementary, modes of data production, which give rise to two double processus of integration and rationalization of transport policy |
| Date: | 2024–11–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:ybgvk_v1 |