IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecoind/v38y2017i1p145-169.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tackling employment in the informal economy: A critical evaluation of the neoliberal policy approach

Author

Listed:
  • Colin C Williams

Abstract

This article evaluates critically the neoliberal perspective that employment in the informal economy is a product of high taxes, public sector corruption and state interference in the free market and that reducing taxes, corruption and the regulatory burden via minimal state intervention is the remedy. Analysing the varying size of the informal economy across 36 developing and transition countries, little or no association is found with higher tax rates, greater levels of corruption and state interference. Instead, employment in the informal economy appears to reduce with higher levels of regulation and state intervention. The theoretical and policy implications are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Colin C Williams, 2017. "Tackling employment in the informal economy: A critical evaluation of the neoliberal policy approach," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 38(1), pages 145-169, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:38:y:2017:i:1:p:145-169
    DOI: 10.1177/0143831X14557961
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X14557961
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0143831X14557961?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrea Fracasso & Giuseppe Vittucci Marzetti & Diego Coletto, 2018. "Informal economy and extractive institutions," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 9(1).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:38:y:2017:i:1:p:145-169. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ekhist.uu.se/english.htm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.