Is informality a barrier to sustainable development?

In this article, using a novel, annual cross‐country panel dataset that covers 160 economies from 1950 to 2016, we examine the association between the size of the informal sector and various indicators of sustainable development. The range of indicators encompasses health‐related, economic, environm...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainable development (Bradford, West Yorkshire, England) West Yorkshire, England), 2021-01, Vol.29 (1), p.45-65
Main Authors: Özgür, Gökçer, Elgin, Ceyhun, Elveren, Adem Y.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access
Air pollution
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide emissions
Drinking water
Economic development
Education
Educational attainment
feminization of labor
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
Health education
Health status
Indicators
inequality
Informal economy
informality
Labor force participation
Life expectancy
Life span
Mortality rates
Per capita
Poverty
Social factors
Sustainability
Sustainable development
Water pollution
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In this article, using a novel, annual cross‐country panel dataset that covers 160 economies from 1950 to 2016, we examine the association between the size of the informal sector and various indicators of sustainable development. The range of indicators encompasses health‐related, economic, environmental, education, and social variables. Our results suggest that the size of the informal sector is negatively associated with GDP per capita, carbon dioxide emissions per capita, education, educational attainment, life expectancy, and access to safe drinking water, and positively related to female labor force participation rate, poverty rates, mortality rates, and air pollution. We also find that these empirical associations significantly interact with GDP per capita, indicating that the effect of larger informal sector size is stronger in less developed economies.
ISSN:0968-0802
1099-1719
DOI:10.1002/sd.2130