IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/kondp1/316.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The informal sector as a substitute for social security

Author

Listed:
  • Kolmar, Martin
  • Marjit, Sugata

Abstract

We consider an economy with two groups of individuals, rich and poor. A central authority can either directly redistribute income to the poor, or allow for some degree of informality in economic activities by not enforcing property rights. The optimal degree of informality depends upon the characteristics of the resources used by the poor if property rights are not perfectly enforced. It is shown that the degree of enforcement falls if the resource is becoming less rivalrous in use. Hence, the informal sector is a better substitute for social security, the more the resources used by the informal sector have the character of public goods. We explore the basic trade-offs and discuss the special cases of anarchy, perfect civil society and the absence of a welfare state. In addition to this we analyze the similarities and differences between a welfare-maximizing state and a predatory state.

Suggested Citation

  • Kolmar, Martin & Marjit, Sugata, 2002. "The informal sector as a substitute for social security," Discussion Papers, Series I 316, University of Konstanz, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:kondp1:316
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/68866/1/685623106.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bush, Winston C. & Mayer, Lawrence S., 1974. "Some implications of anarchy for the distribution of property," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 401-412, August.
    2. Kai Konrad & Stergios Skaperdas, 2012. "The market for protection and the origin of the state," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 50(2), pages 417-443, June.
    3. Skaperdas, Stergios, 1992. "Cooperation, Conflict, and Power in the Absence of Property Rights," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 720-739, September.
    4. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1995. "Anarchy and Its Breakdown," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(1), pages 26-52, February.
    5. Marjit, Sugata & Shi, Heling, 1998. "On controlling crime with corrupt officials," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 163-172, January.
    6. Marjit, Sugata & Mukherjee, Vivekananda & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2000. "Harassment, corruption and tax policy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 75-94, March.
    7. Herschel I. Grossman & Minseong Kim, 1996. "Inequality, Predation and Welfare," NBER Working Papers 5704, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Paolo Mauro, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712.
    9. Marjit, Sugata & Rajeev, Meenakshi & Mukherjee, Diganta, 2000. "Incomplete information as a deterrent to crime," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 763-773, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bos, Dieter & Kolmar, Martin, 2003. "Anarchy, efficiency, and redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(11), pages 2431-2457, October.
    2. Muthoo, Abhinay, 2000. "On the foundations of basic property rights, Part I: A model of the state-of-nature with two players," Economics Discussion Papers 9986, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    3. Ansink, Erik & Weikard, Hans-Peter, 2009. "Contested water rights," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 247-260, June.
    4. Roth, M. Garrett & Skarbek, David, 2014. "Prison Gangs and the Community Responsibility System," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 1(3), pages 223-243, May.
    5. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2011. "The Economics of Destructive Power," Chapters, in: Derek L. Braddon & Keith Hartley (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Conflict, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. María Cubel & Santiago Sanchez-Pages, 2020. "Property Out of Conflict: A Survey and Some New Results," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 130(6), pages 891-927.
    7. Carter, John R. & Anderton, Charles H., 2001. "An experimental test of a predator-prey model of appropriation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 83-97, May.
    8. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Skaperdas, Stergios, 2007. "Economics of Conflict: An Overview," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 649-709, Elsevier.
    9. Bose, Gautam, 2004. "Bureaucratic delays and bribe-taking," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 313-320, July.
    10. Martin Kolmar, 2007. "Goods or resource contests?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 491-499, June.
    11. van Besouw, Bram & Ansink, Erik & van Bavel, Bas, 2016. "The economics of violence in natural states," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 139-156.
    12. Stergios Skaperdas, 2003. "Restraining the Genuine Homo Economicus: Why the Economy Cannot Be Divorced from Its Governance," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(2), pages 135-162, July.
    13. Martin Kolmar, 2008. "Perfectly Secure Property Rights and Production Inefficiencies in Tullock Contests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(2), pages 441-456, August.
    14. Sanchez-Pages, Santiago, 2006. "On the social efficiency of conflict," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 96-101, January.
    15. Tangerås, Thomas P. & Lagerlöf, Nils-Petter, 2002. "Ethnic Diversity and Civil War," Working Paper Series 589, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    16. Konrad, Kai A., 2002. "Investment in the absence of property rights; the role of incumbency advantages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1521-1537, September.
    17. MacKenzie, Ian A. & Ohndorf, Markus, 2013. "Restricted Coasean bargaining," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 296-307.
    18. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2009. "A Critical Review of Strategic Conflict Theory and Socio-political Instability Models," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 119(6), pages 817-858.
    19. Stergios Skaperdas, 2008. "An economic approach to analyzing civil wars," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 25-44, January.
    20. Eggert, Wolfgang & Kolmar, Martin, 2006. "Contests with size effects," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 989-1008, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:zbw:kondp1:316. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwkonde.html .

    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.