This landmark volume brings together leading scholars in the field to investigate recent conceptual shifts, research findings and policy debates on the informal economy as well as future challenges and directions for research and policy. Well over half of the global workforce and the vast majority of the workforce in developing countries work in the informal economy, and in countries around the world new forms of informal employment are emerging. Yet the informal workforce is not well understood, remains undervalued and is widely stigmatised. Contributors to the volume bridge a range of disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, development economics, law, political science, social policy, sociology, statistics, urban planning and design. The Informal Economy Revisited also focuses on specific groups of informal workers, including home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers, to provide a grounded insight into disciplinary debates. Ultimately, the book calls for a paradigm shift in how the informal economy is perceived to reflect the realities of informal work in the Global South, as well as the informal practices of the state and capital, not just labour. The Informal Economy Revisited is the culmination of 20 years of pioneering work by WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing), a global network of researchers, development practitioners and organisations of informal workers in 90 countries. Researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and advocates will all find this book an invaluable guide to the significance and complexities of the informal economy, and its role in today’s globalised economy. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429200724, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

This book provides insight into the diverse aspects of the informal sector, its role in the context of unemployment, child labor, globalization and environment, as well as its multi-faceted interaction with the other sectors of the economy.

The author develops a view of the informal sector in developing countries primarily as an unregulated micro-entrepreneurial sector and not as a disadvantaged residual of segmented labor markets. Drawing on recent work from Latin America, he offers alternative explanations for many of the characteristics of the informal sector customarily regarded as evidence of its inferiority.

This pioneering study offers a conceptual model and rich empirical evidence to help researchers and policy-makers understand informal innovation in developing countries.

Analyzes informality in Latin America, exploring root causes and reasons for and implications of its growth. This book uses two distinct but complementary lenses. It concludes that reducing informality levels and overcoming the "culture of informality" will require actions to increase aggregate productivity in the economy.

A large percentage of workers and firms operate in the informal economy, outside the line of sight of governments in emerging market and developing economies. This may hold back the recovery in these economies from the deep recessions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic--unless governments adopt a broad set of policies to address the challenges of widespread informality. This study is the first comprehensive analysis of the extent of informality and its implications for a durable economic recovery and for long-term development. It finds that pervasive informality is associated with significantly weaker economic outcomes--including lower government resources to combat recessions, lower per capita incomes, greater poverty, less financial development, and weaker investment and productivity.

Street trade is a critical and highly visible component of the informal economy, linked to global systems of exchange. Yet policy responses are dismissive and evictions commonplace. Despite being progressively marginalised from public space, street traders in the global south are engaged in spatial and political battlegrounds to reclaim space, and claim de facto property rights over their place of work, through quiet infiltration, union power, or direct action. This book explores 'rebel streets', the challenges faced by informal economy actors and how organised groups are seeking to reframe legal understandings to create new claims to space and urban rights. The book sets out new thinking and a conceptual framework for improved understanding of the plural relationship between law, rights, and space for the informal economy, the contest between traditional, modernist and rights-based approaches to development, and impacts on the urban working poor. With a focus on street trading, the book seeks to reframe the legal context in which modern informal economies operate, drawing on key areas of academic inquiry and case studies of how vendors are staking claim to urban rights. The book argues for a reconceptualisation of legal instruments to provide a rights-based framework for urban work that recognises the legitimacy of urban informal economies, the scope for collective management of urban resources, and the social value of public space as a site for urban livelihoods. It will be of interest to students and scholars of geography, economics, urban studies, development studies, political studies and law.