Informal Sector and Institutions

Ozer, Yusuf (2022): Informal Sector and Institutions.

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the relationship between informal sector size and various institutional quality variables: government stability, external conflict, internal conflict, corruption control, military influence over politics, religious tensions, ethnic tensions, law-and-order, democratic quality, and bureaucratic accountability. To this end, I use annual cross-country panel data covering 130 countries from 1990 to 2018. Having conducted a correlation analysis, I find that the size of informal economy and institutional quality indicators are inversely linked, and the most important institutional quality determinants are law-and-order (-0.53), bureaucratic quality (-0.51), military in politics (-0.45), corruption control (-0.42), and internal conflict (-0.35).

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: informal sector; institutional quality; cross-country analysis; panel data
• Subjects: E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy > E26 - Informal Economy ; Underground Economy; H - Public Economics > H2 - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue > H26 - Tax Evasion and Avoidance; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > O43 - Institutions and Growth

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