Income of the informal sector of the economy.
The informal sector of the economy has a significant impact on the socio-economic situation as a whole, the standard of living of the population, and the state of the labor market. The informal sector is actually an independent segment of the labor market with a significant number of employees in certain areas of activity.
The boundaries between the concepts of the shadow economy and its informal sector are rather conditional.
The informal sector of the economy is considered by the International Labor Organization as a set of very small economic units that produce and distribute goods and services. They consist mainly of independent, self-employed producers. Some of them also use the labor of their family members, several hired workers. The business units are household enterprises.
The shadow economy is a broader concept. It includes all economic activities that are not recorded by official statistics and are not subject to taxes, that is, the informal sector and illegal activities.
It is assumed that the enterprises of the "shadow economy" larger enterprises informal sector and are not household enterprises.
So, the informal sector refers to unregistered economic activities carried out by citizens, independently or within small production units at their own expense or using the means of labor of enterprises in the formal sector.
According to some estimates, currently about 40% of family income remains unknown to the tax department. The amount of unrecorded income, along with income from informal employment, also includes hidden wages in the formal sector, income from “shadow” transactions, which cannot be determined. According to the most general calculations, the share of the informal sector itself accounts for about three-quarters of all unrecorded incomes of the population.
The most typical types of informal activities are: street trading; services to the population in construction, repair, tailoring; private services - cleaning, cooking; tutoring, private lessons; as well as brokerage and intermediary activities. All these activities in most cases are carried out without patents, contracts, and are not declared to the tax office.
For most people, income from informal employment is secondary. First of all, this applies to those who work part-time or are on administrative leave; those employed in low-wage industries.
It can be assumed that a significant part of the people who are counted as the economically inactive population are actually employed in the informal sector. This is caused either by a conscious shift to the informal sector in search of higher incomes, or by the inability to find work in the formal sector.
Young people and students in general are most involved in the informal sector. Older people with additional income, especially pensioners, usually receive it from informal employment. People with high level educations are less likely than others to have additional income in the informal sector.
The informal sector involves significantly more people with high incomes than those with low ones. But this does not indicate a high level of income in this sector, but the higher incomes of people who generally have additional earnings.
The scale of informal employment in Russia is much higher than in most developed countries, and is comparable only to Italy, where up to 30% of GNP is produced by the "shadow economy". The general level of involvement of the Russian population in informal employment is comparable to that in developing countries. First of all, with Latin American countries, where such employment is 25-45%.
income differentiation.
The reasons.
One of the sources of social tension in any country is the difference in the levels of well-being of citizens, their level of wealth. The level of wealth is determined by two factors:
1) the amount of property of all types owned by individual citizens; 2) the amount of current income of citizens.
People earn income as a result of creating their own business (becoming entrepreneurs) or providing the factors of production that they own (their labor, capital or land) for the use of other people or firms, and they use this property to produce the necessary goods. In such a mechanism of income formation, the possibility of their inequality was initially laid down. The reason for this:
1) the different value of factors of production owned by people (capital in the form of a computer, in principle, is able to bring more income than in the form of a shovel);
2) different success in the use of factors of production (for example, an employee in a firm that produces a scarce product may receive higher earnings than his colleague of the same qualification working in a firm whose goods are sold with difficulty);
3) a different amount of factors of production owned by people (the owner of two oil wells receives, other things being equal, more income than the owner of one well).
All people are born different and endowed with different abilities, some of which are rarer than others. Thus, in any country there are always very few people who can reach the heights of mathematics, become outstanding football players or create a thriving enterprise. Therefore, in the national labor market, the demand for such abilities far exceeds the supply. And that drives up the price. labor abilities such people, that is, their income.
Pros and cons of income inequality.
None economic system failed to eliminate inequality of income and wealth of families. Even under conditions command system In the USSR, the state was forced to abandon the principles of complete equalization (they were tried to be implemented only during the period of “war communism”) and move on to generating income according to the principle: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” But since people have different abilities, their labor has a different value, and this entails unequal remuneration for labor, that is, a difference in income.
Of course, in the USSR, for the vast majority of the population, the differences in income levels were much smaller than now in Russian Federation but they still existed. Someone bought export-made Zhiguli or Volga, while at the same time, in all schools, parent committees were forced to raise money to buy school uniforms for children from poor families. Inequality of income and wealth can reach enormous proportions and then it creates a threat to the political and economic stability in the country. Therefore, almost all developed countries of the world are constantly implementing measures to reduce such inequalities.
But first, let's try to figure out why absolute equality in income is also undesirable.
The fact is that the leveling organization of economic life kills people's incentives for productive work. After all, we are all born different and endowed with different abilities, some of which are rarer than others. Therefore, in the national labor market, the demand for rarer abilities far exceeds the supply. And this leads to an increase in the price of the labor abilities of such people, that is, their income. However, people with the same type of abilities perform the same duties also in different ways, with different labor productivity and product quality. How to pay for these various results of labor? What is more important - the fact of labor or its result?
Part one
The informal sector is not a shadow economy
The informal sector is usually understood as a set of small economic units, as well as economic activities carried out on the basis of households or individually. The concept of the informal sector is not identical with the concept of the shadow or non-observed economy. The shadow economy refers to any unregistered and tax-free economic activity, including criminal, as well as unregistered within large or medium-sized registered enterprises, while the informal sector does not include those engaged in illegal activities (smuggling, production and distribution of drugs, prostitution, etc.). ), as well as those who work without registration in large and medium-sized formal sector enterprises. However, it can include both the self-employed and those employed (in the informal sector or with individuals).
According to Russian statistics, “informal sector enterprises are household enterprises, or unincorporated enterprises owned by households, that produce goods and services for sale on the market and do not have a legal status legal entity" .
The informal sector as a whole and employment in it is very difficult to quantify. At one extreme in the spectrum of types of informal employment are highly qualified services provided in individually professionals (e.g. doctors, teachers, lawyers). On the other hand, there are unproductive activities aimed at ensuring the conditions for the simple survival of families (such as, for example, the production of products in the household for subsequent sale on the market). Another additional segment is small business. It may be individual and unincorporated (that is, not in the form of a firm) and therefore remains outside the reporting of the formal sector.
The most important source of information on employment in the informal sector is the population surveys on employment problems (OSEM) conducted by the State Statistics Committee of Russia. They largely meet international requirements for measuring informal employment. Since 1999, they have been held on a quarterly basis, which makes it possible to capture seasonal fluctuations in the dynamics of informal employment.
The identification of those employed in the informal sector is carried out on the basis of a combination of answers to several questions, the key of which is the question of the place of work. It suggests the following options:
Groups (c)-(e) belong entirely to the informal sector. Employed in (a) and (b) are also classified as informal if they work "without registration or paperwork" "in their own enterprise or in their own business for income" or "as a member of a production cooperative (artel) ". The informal sector also includes those employed in the production of products or services in the household, if these products or services are sold on the market. The enlarged structure of the informal sector, identified in accordance with the accepted definition, is shown in fig. I-1.
Figure I-1. Structure of employment in the informal sector at the main job in 2001 (annual average)
Informal employment should include both the employment that the citizens themselves consider their main job, and the one that is the second or additional. It is clear that to a large extent the involvement of citizens in the informal sector is manifested in the form of secondary employment. The share of this sector in the total cost of working time in the economy can be much larger than its share in the number of employees.
1 - The article was prepared within the framework of the project of the Bureau of Economic Analysis "Development of a methodology for macroeconomic assessment and analysis of trends in the informal sector of the Russian economy, taking into account international experience." The author is grateful to S. Barsukova, N. Vishnevskaya, T. Gorbacheva, R. Kapelyushnikov, A. Kosarev, G. Monusova, V. Radaev and Z. Ryzhikova
2 - There are many definitions of the shadow and informal economies. A fairly comprehensive review of the shadow economy literature is given in Schneider and Enste (2000), Shadow Economies: Size, Causes, and Consequences. Journal of Economic Literature, Vol.38, No.1. In Russian, see, for example: E.Mingioni, Informal economy through the prism of Western experience... In: Informal economy: Russia and the world. Ed. T. Shanina, M., 1999; informal employment. In: Employment and the labor market, M., 1998. Some researchers associate informal economic activity not so much with the household sector as with corporate entities. See: Informal sector in Russian economy, ISRAP, M., 1998.
3 - "Methodological provisions for measuring employment in the informal sector of the economy". Goskomstat of Russia, 2001.
Introduction…………………………………………………………………..…..3
1. A person in the household………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
2. Informal economy as a form of economy…………………….…..21
2.1. Informal economy as segments of the economy…………….…22
2.2. Definition of the informal economy…………………………...22
2.3. Definition of the shadow economy…………………………….…….25
2.4. Ways to measure the informal economy………………..….29
2.5.Factors of informal economy development………………..……32
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………….....35
List of used literature………………………………………36
Introduction.
In modern conditions, when so much is said about the development of market relations and which is so little observed in reality, the informal economy has been widely developed. The household is a significant segment of the informal economy. To one degree or another, according to analysts, about half of the working population of our country is involved in the informal economy. Before analyzing this phenomenon, let's give the concept of "informal economy".
At first, the concept of "informal economy" was perceived as a synonym for the concepts of "poverty", "underdevelopment". Economic theory defined informal employment as the lot of those who do not have the opportunity to settle in the formal sector, as a survival strategy, an anachronism.
However, later this term was returned to the meaning that K. Hart discovered - a sign of the entrepreneurial activity of the population.
K. Hart (1973), a British anthropologist, in his study of the urban labor force in Ghana, introduced a distinction between those whose relationship with employers was formalized by contracts and those who earned their living informally.
The speed with which the term introduced by K. Hart was developed testified that the concept of "informal economy" was able to cover phenomena of a more general order than the specifics of the labor market in Ghana.
Consider the modern definitions of the informal economy, which can be found in economic dictionaries:
INFORMAL ECONOMY - a set of types economic activity not covered by legal, fiscal and statistical accounting. The informal economy is represented by a wide range of informal relations that are inherent in the economies of developed, developing and post-socialist countries. The informal economy is sometimes referred to as "parallel economy", "second economy". It fits into the structure of modern market economy interacts and intertwines with the official economy.
INFORMAL ECONOMY - a set of economic relations that are not reflected in official reporting and formal contracts. Typology J. Gershuni. It is advisable to supplement these definitions with the statement of V.V. Radaev, who noted that "the informal economy does not just indicate individual forms of economy, but denotes a general economic and sociological approach to the world of the economy. The informal economy appears as a certain logic of actions of economic agents." To better understand what the informal economy is, let's consider its individual segments, which are the shadow economy and the household.
The shadow economy is an activity that bypasses certain formalized institutions of economic practice (registration and licensing, taxation, reporting, etc.).
This phenomenon is dangerous next, non-observance of any norms or their ignoring leads to the fact that their place is taken by other norms. There are illegal relationships. Two types of such relations can be distinguished: corruption - illegal connection with legal representatives of power and, for example, attempts to acquire a "roof" - the desire to establish regular relations with legal and illegal power partners.
One of the negative points is the fact that such activities are perceived as rational behavior, for example, the issue of paying taxes. For many tax evaders, it doesn't even occur to them that they are doing something wrong. The propaganda carried out in Russia in 2002-2004 on television "pay and sleep well" did not bring any tangible results. This happened for two reasons: firstly, non-payment of taxes is "correct" according to the majority, and secondly, you can not pay and sleep peacefully.
1. Man in the household.
A person can be included in the spheres of employment and create material values without entering the labor market at all. We are talking about those who work in the household. In this special sphere, which is outside the "bureaucratic state" and the "free market", large masses of people are concentrated who produce a significant share of products and services in any society, no matter how developed or backward.
First of all, let's define what we mean by "household". Often, it refers to the totality of all economic functions performed by family members within their home space. In this understanding, in our opinion, there are two shortcomings. First, it is difficult to determine where "home" ends and activity outside "home" begins. Second, housework
subsistence is mixed with formal and informal paid employment in the labor market. Therefore, we will consider the household (household) in a narrower sense - as an area of employment in which members of a family or an interfamily clan provide their personal needs in the form of natural products and services with their work. Thus, we contrast
household market (independent and organized) and state mobilization employment (army, etc.).
For economists, the sphere of the household is not a "periphery" of the first or even of the second order. This is partly understandable, since economic relations here are too weakly differentiated from other relations. It is less clear why this object is stubbornly avoided by most sociologists (we will try to show further that it is quite "sociological"). Apparently, the "interdisciplinary" enthusiasm for the leading socio-economic structures and the dismissive attitude towards the "archaic" are having an effect. The household, with its relatively low technical equipment and undeveloped division of labor, is considered the sphere of activity of the traditional (pre-capitalist, "pre-economic") man. In the modern economy, however, its functions are considered secondary, because they are entirely linked with the provision of personal consumption. In addition, for a long time, homework was not considered work, even if it had direct market counterparts. Under the dominance of the "market" and "planned" paradigms, labor was limited to the sphere of paid employment.
Neoclassical economics made a sharp distinction between the sphere of production, in which firms operated, and the sphere of consumption, in which households unquestionably belonged. The former were profit-oriented, the latter maximized utility. The situation began to change from the mid-1960s, when a new economic theory of domestic
production (G. Becker, J. Minser and others). It has been suggested that products bought from the market should not be regarded as a direct source of utility, but as "raw materials" for home production. This made it possible to spread production terminology far beyond the limits of production proper - to such areas as, for example, family planning, fertility, and many others. Indeed, if desired,
household can find all the basic attributes of the production process. Here there are workers working with a certain productivity, there are means of production and investments, and processes of mechanization and privatization are unfolding.
Nevertheless, already on the threshold of a household, we are faced with a problem: a person in such an household can be employed full-time and full-time, but are we entitled to consider his activity as labor? How, for example, to qualify home childcare: is it labor, recreation, or
outside work? The question is far from abstract. To what extent can women who have been raising children all their lives qualify for a "labor" pension and other social guarantees? Maybe it depends on the number of children (i.e., the size of the total "labor" efforts to raise them)? How to separate
domestic labor from free time, and domestic production from net consumption? Maybe turn to the motives and attitudes of the people themselves? After all, many household activities (for example, gardening or fishing) can be considered both work and leisure, depending on the inclinations of the person.
Economists try to solve this problem without resorting to subjective estimates. For them, domestic work acts as a mediating link between the sphere of the market and the sphere of consumption. More specifically, domestic work is defined as a form of activity that can be replaced by market employment. In other words,
you can use paid services babysitter to take care of your child, or send the child to a paid kindergarten. But it would never occur to anyone to hire a person to watch TV for you. Therefore, in the first case, we are talking about domestic work, and in the second, about rest time. The types of domestic work, respectively, should include the entire range of activities for self-sustainment of life: the manufacture, construction and repair of items used in the household, transportation, barter, cleaning, washing clothes, cooking, making current purchases, caring for children and disabled people. family members. Some of these activities are done in the home space, some - outside it, but for the needs of the household.
The household is now viewed by economists as the unit that maximizes its welfare within two main constraints: the money budget and the time budget. Since it is assumed that family income can be increased by reducing domestic work or leisure time in favor of
market employment, one limitation remains - the lack of time.
Difficulties immediately arise with the measurement of the time resource. First of all, there is a lack of systematic data on family time budgets. But, most importantly, it is not clear how to measure the price of time spent in the household, how to evaluate the product of labor, which is not originally intended for sale? Two ways of overcoming this main difficulty are proposed. The first is to calculate the time spent in the household by opportunity costs (opportunity costs), i.e. magnitude wages, which a given person could receive for a given time in the labor market. The second way is to impute to the fruits of the household the price that is set by the market on this species product or service. However, this does not solve all problems. In the first case, the market price of labor is not always an adequate measure. For example, productivity in a household may be completely independent of whether the housewife has a degree in higher education and academic degree. And economists still have to appeal to the difference in subjective assessments, which representatives more and less
educated strata give to their domestic labor. In the second case, someone else's time spent by someone in the labor market to provide you with a service, and your time spent in the household on self-service, contrary to the assumptions of economic theory, are often evaluated by very different measures.
Do economic calculations to the decision of a housewife who is faced with a choice: buy a washing machine, take clothes to the laundry or wash them by hand? Yes, they do, and in a serious way. But it does not follow from this that "market" and domestic labor are calculated as one equivalent. First, these types of labor can be evaluated in different ways. monetary units. Secondly, housework is not
always measured in money. Often it does not come to quantitative assessments, although a person weighs qualitatively heterogeneous alternatives. Let's say a mother decides whether to go to work to get extra income, or to sit with her child, giving him more attention and care. For her, this is not a comparison of two amounts of money.
Human-made ranking is often the product of a "quality" solution. In other words, we can say "which is more profitable" from the point of view of a given person, but we cannot say "how much more profitable." Consequently, there is a doubt about the admissibility of mathematical operations and the representation of behavioral characteristics in the form of smooth curves. Of course, the researcher is free
make calculations for their subjects, assuming that they "as if" calculate the monetary profits and costs of domestic labor. But are we not replacing the main causes with secondary ones in this case? And isn't it easier to admit that here economic analysis encounters the limits beyond which lie the regions
immeasurable economy.
However, a more important circumstance lies not in the measuring capabilities of the researcher, but in the qualitative specifics of the household itself, where the production is intertwined with the personal, and the economic with the social. After all, in essence, we are talking about a family economy. The subject of "production" here is not a separate individual, but a family or several families leading a joint household. The family is by no means a group of individuals connected by a dotted line of contractual obligations. This is a close supra-individual community, bound by the bonds of social norms and held together by the hoops of consanguinity. Marriage and other contracts
exist far from everywhere and are only one of the forms of regulation of family relations. But even if, for example, spouses have separate bank accounts and retain separate property rights, or if there is only one breadwinner in the family, relationships are rarely built on the basis of independent individual decisions.
"Joint farm", " family budget"are not otherworldly abstractions. In addition to belonging to a local community, organization, social groups," economic man" also belongs to the family (clan) as a node of "strong ties". Here the limits and sequence of access to household resources are determined, economic rights and obligations of its members are differentiated.
The traditional economist finds a characteristic way out. He identifies the household as an integral unit with an individual who makes rational decisions (recall that this is also done in the theory of the firm). Thus, the complex internal structure of the household is excluded from consideration. Meanwhile, this structure hides many serious
problems, one of which is related to gender relations in the household. The economist, as a rule, is indifferent to this problem. At first, in the nineteenth century, the actions of his beloved "economic man" were based on the totality of property and civil rights that belonged to a man. In the twentieth century, the democratic equality of the rights of men and women was established. And at first glance, both equally began to claim the role of homo economicus. This made it possible to avoid posing sensitive questions again.
Meanwhile, the difference in gender positions is especially visible in the division of functions in the household, where the work largely lies on the shoulders of women. An economist who pays attention to intra-family problems explains this as follows. For biological reasons, women are more involved in childcare and related household responsibilities. And since they spend more time on them, women have more incentives to invest in non-market human capital, but in those types of it that increase the efficiency of their work in the household. Accordingly, it is more rational for men in such a situation to invest in market human capital and receive higher rewards in the market in order to maximize the total
family utility. Thus, a vicious circle arises in which biological differences are reinforced and reinforced by economic actions.
When a man is the main earner of livelihoods, assigning housework to a woman can still be considered "rational". and relatively lower average salary women really help secure their position as domestic workers. But only how, adopting rationalistic terminology, to explain why in families where the wife works, and
husband is unemployed, there is no radical redistribution of household responsibilities? There is nothing to do, you have to wave your hand and refer to the role of tradition.
It cannot be said that the division of labor in the household does not respond to changes in employment in the labor market. But the models of his adaptation are different. These may include:
The traditional model of labor dependence (Dependent Labor), when women's market employment is secondary to men's and does not affect the woman's domestic duties.
The egalitarian model of adaptive partnership, when, with an increase in the employment of a woman in the labor market, a man takes on part of her household duties, thereby balancing the comparative work load.
A transitional model of gradual adaptation (Lagged Adaptation), when the redistribution of household responsibilities occurs, but with a rather large (sometimes generational) time gap.
And yet, the involvement of a woman in formal employment, as a rule, does not yet bring her a commensurate release from domestic duties, and the refusal to work outside the home is not associated with an adequate increase in free time. This allows some neo-Marxist sociologists to characterize the relationship between the sexes in the household as a direct continuation of the industrial exploitation of the woman, who bears the heavy burden of unpaid work.
Thus, a sociological variant of production determinism arose, which, firstly, by relegating woman to the role of a "proletarian", diminishes her real social role and internal influence in the household, and, secondly, turns a blind eye to the fact that economic functions in this type of economy is close
way intertwined with the functions of natural reproduction. And no democratic and feminist movements will lead to the achievement of complete equality of the situation for family members, unless they intend to free a woman from motherhood.
The grounding of the household to natural processes also appears in the form of special socio-economic strategies. One of these basic strategies was identified on the example of peasant farms and called the ethics of survival. It is based on the principle of "safety first" and is expressed in the avoidance of risk,
even at the cost of lowering average incomes. Over the centuries, a whole system of social practices has been developed, including communal redistribution of land, mutual assistance, voluntary financing of common needs by wealthy owners in order to guarantee everyone the "sacred right to life", to insure against the collapse of the economy in the face of sharp fluctuations in productivity over the years.
The politics of survival is important, of course, not only for pre-capitalist peasant farms. The very definition of "domestic work" is even linked to this policy: "The criterion for classifying an activity as "work," E. Mingioni believes, "is making a contribution to ensuring material survival."
Economists, we recall, opposed "subjectivism" and defined domestic work as something that can be replaced by market employment. Here we are offered another objective criterion that allows us to classify or not classify specific occupations as "labor" according to the nature of their connection with the needs of the household. The fact is that it is not the economy that reigns in the household, coupled with
rational (monetary) miscalculation of options for the use of limited resources, but what K. Polanyi called the substantive economy associated with human life support. Human actions in such an economy are motivated by substantially different motives than the conventional maximization of profit or wealth. A.V. Chayanov repeatedly pointed to
the fact that the peasant economy, for example, is guided primarily by non-acquisitive motives. In contrast to the farming economy, which seeks to maximize profits, it focuses on "domestic forms of labor-consumption balance", trying to balance the burden of work and the level of satisfaction of basic needs.
Classical "economic man" most often appears to us in the guise of an entrepreneur maximizing profits, or a consumer maximizing utility. In the household, on the other hand, we come across another hypostasis of it, which is not reducible to either the first or the second appearance.
Survival strategy, however, is not the only policy of the family economy. And in general, one should not initially qualify all his strategies as purely traditionalist. These strategies are not only designed for a longer term than what a business firm can realistically afford in the market. They are also rational in their own way, implying specific ways of forward planning. Economic elements such planning is closely linked with socio-demographic reproduction - how and what to teach your children, when and with whom to marry (whom to marry), where and with what funds to build a house for young people before they have children, etc. Postponing savings and accumulating property, receiving consumer loans and development
home production - all this is connected with concern about who will replace, stand at the head of the house, provide it with working hands. And it is difficult to say which subject behaves more rationally: the household or the firm. Rather, they exhibit different types of rationality. The fundamental feature of the household as a moral economy lies in the fact that the rational and the non-rational are closely intertwined here, and it is extremely difficult to isolate the traditional, value and affective elements from the rational.
Thus, the intrusion of non-economic passions and attachments explains in part the fact that, despite the development of the modern service industry, so many burdensome duties are still performed within the household, although it would be more cost-effective to hire professionals. Many people simply do not want to invite "strangers" into the house or give personal belongings "to the outside."
If we follow economic logic, if we have free funds Why not, say, send the parents to a comfortable nursing home. However, most families do not do this. In such cases, there is a systematic shift in economic calculation. As a result, homo economicus feels very uncomfortable within the walls of the household. If where and exists
"pure economy", then here it turns into a haggard abstraction.
Next feature household is expressed by the fact that in it we are closely confronted with the informal economy. Informal relations exist, of course, both in the state and in the market economic sectors. But in this area they acquire special power. The zones of the household, the family economy and the informal economy overlap to a great extent.
First, the household is a zone of informal employment. Secondly, the household acts as a zone of informal labor relations, dominated by paternalistic and fraternalistic strategies. Finally, thirdly, the household is overgrown with dense tangles of informal exchange - related, neighborly, friendly, ethnic. Information is transmitted through them, mutual assistance is provided, which is fundamentally different from the social support of the state or firm. The economist tends to think of informal relationships as systems of exchange of services within a kind of "quasi-markets." Pursuing their own personal gain, rational subjects enter into a "market" bargain. Even if in this auction you will not be repaid immediately and in a different form, the main principle remains: you have rendered services today, which means that you have the right to expect a reciprocal service tomorrow. However, in a conversation about such "markets" it will most likely not be possible to remove the quotes due to many conventions.
The sociologist draws attention to the following circumstances. Very often informal exchange is not accepted monetary nature, or money plays a secondary role in it, and non-equivalence is the norm rather than the exception. Further, the principle of reciprocity, defined by K. Polanyi, operates here, according to which the reimbursement of costs can be significantly delayed in time and can be carried out not by the direct recipient of funds, but by a completely different agent. Moreover, a significant part of the resources is generally spent in the form of gratuitous material assistance, which is due to the existence of a normal life cycle. Of course, you can imagine the matter as follows: today you feed the children, so that tomorrow they will take care of their own children, and at the same time support you in old age. But it is doubtful that this exchange could be considered economic. To a greater extent, it ensures the "right to life" and sets up status positions in the family and in local communities.
The informal economy is often associated with employment in micro and family enterprises, but its main distinguishing feature is the lack of formal registration, which allows you not to be constrained by the law and not pay taxes. However, there are different segments of informal employment. In one of them, economic activity fits into legal norms, the other
covers "semi-legal" activities that use extra-legal areas or contradictions in the legislation, and the third includes illegal (criminal) activities. The differences between these segments are, of course, rather analytical, in fact they are intensely mixed.
We can conclude that the nature of a household is determined by two groups of factors: its socio-demographic composition (the number of members, their sex and age, the percentage of workers in general composition) and socio-cultural features (education, class affiliation, breadth and density of social ties, specificity of norms and customs). These groups of factors determine
on the one hand, the level and structure of requests, and on the other hand, the labor possibilities of a given economy.
The social structure of the household is undergoing major changes today, among which are the following:
The proportion of households based on a nuclear family or one married couple is increasing.
The number of large households serving large families and groups of families is declining.
is increasing specific gravity households where the main worker and breadwinner is a woman.
Increasingly, women (especially married women) combine domestic work with formal employment.
The level of formal employment of youth groups is declining due to unemployment and lengthening of the terms of education.
The geographical mobility of households is increasing.
All this affects not only the change in the links between the market and the household, but also the redistribution of resources in the household itself, which appears in a growing variety of differentiated forms. There is also a serious renewal of the technological base of the household. It was expected that technology would "take away" from him many of his usual economic functions.
But the process turned out to be non-linear, which is demonstrated by the following characteristic example. With the development of the "service society" in the developed Western countries, a drop in the share of people employed in the sphere of consumer services was found. This, of course, did not mean that the demand for these services had decreased. It’s just that the realization of the increased needs for domestic services has gone largely commodity market into the household sector. At first, laundries freed housewives from a significant part of hand washing, and socialization of this type of labor took place. Then people got the opportunity to buy high-quality and relatively inexpensive washing machines, and many stopped running to the laundry. The mechanization of household services contributed to their privatization.
In large cities, the household is becoming more and more atomic, freeing itself from at least part of the neighborhood and family ties. At the same time, on the basis of electronic means of communication, the household is drawn into the latest Information Systems mastering "distant" and "weak" professional connections. For many skilled occupations, the old separation between home and office is beginning to blur again. Improving the communication system is also associated with the establishment of new forms of control over the activities of households by big capital (primarily
However, in general, despite important shifts in the social structure of the household, technological changes, the increased pressure of individualistic attitudes, the relative equalization of gender roles, the household turns out to be quite conservative. It adapts to changes, but retains many principles of management. It should be stated that the concepts of the household are still in the role of "stepchildren" of economic and sociological theory. Recognition of unpaid domestic employment as a kind of labor, and housekeeping as a form
production seems to have raised their status. But fundamentally, methodological approaches have not changed much: what happens in the household is still considered a continuation of the laws of material production and the market. Although, in principle, it is just as legitimate to take a different point of view: one can consider market employment as a continuation of the policy of the household. In any case, the latter becomes living evidence that the sphere of the economy extends beyond the market economy. And this forces us to limit the influence of the market paradigm. Does not exhaust topics and engaging the planned paradigm
economy.
Of course, in turn, one should not exaggerate the role of purely social factors, deriving all explanations from the culture of work or the peculiarities of the national mentality, class affiliation or the structure of social ties. In general, it would be foolish to reject the economic approach, which, even in its traditional form, yields very valuable results. But the absolutization of such an approach also does not lead to good. There are fine lines, overstepping which the "economic imperialist" runs the risk of becoming an object of ridicule. Indeed, one begins to feel uncomfortable when it comes to the "quality of children" (desired characteristics for parents) and their "hidden price" ( material costs for the development of these qualities); when the expediency of marriage is measured by savings on
acquisition consumer services, which can now be obtained at home and for free; when there are claims that marriage based on love is "more productive"; or that "the demand for children depends on the relative price of children and total income."
G. Becker, quoted by us, calls for the bold rationalization of "incomprehensible" processes. And in this respect, he and his followers are right, in principle, literally everything can be considered in economic terms. But on this path, there are not only scientific barriers related to the degree of acceptable abstraction, but also ethical barriers arising from the value self-determination of the researcher. Let's say if your own and someone else's child is drowning, and you have only one lifeline, who should you throw it to? The economic scheme will promptly tell you how to use the "limited resource" more rationally. One can further speculate about the frequency with which people will follow this option in real life. But the answer lies elsewhere. An economist simply shouldn't take this
"task". Everything can be subjected to bare calculation, but it is not always worth it, especially when it comes to people's lives or higher spiritual values. It can be concluded that the choice of one or another approach is dictated not only by the nature of the object (it can be quite difficult to consistently divide it into economic and sociological parts). A sense of proportion and creative intuition of the researcher also play a significant role. It is the sense of proportion that should
prompt the researcher when he should stop or at least change the method. The limits of cognizability are thus set for us not only by the imperfection of the intellect, but also by the effectiveness of morality.
2. Informal economy as a form of economy.
Our ideas about business processes are often distorted in
due to the fact that a significant part of them falls out of sight, remains hidden from observers, is not recorded by statistical data.
And in order to understand how economic agents operate, we cannot
confine ourselves to the analysis of the formal economy and consider that the economy is completely subject to the established legislative norms. It is for this reason that the informal economy, eluding superficial views, has become one of the main topics in the study of which economists and economic sociologists have converged. At first, the research concerned mainly the developing countries of the third world, then a vast informal economy was "discovered" in post-communist countries, and, finally, it turned out that, to one degree or another, the topic is relevant for all types of farms, including developed Western societies. The number of theoretical and empirical studies on this topic is growing. Nevertheless, on the way to revealing the secrets of the informal economy, there are a lot of obstacles that are associated not only with the obvious lack of information for calculations, but also with conceptual difficulties - a discrepancy in understanding the phenomenon itself.
It is advisable to start by highlighting two fundamentally different approaches to the analysis of the informal economy - structural and institutional. The structural approach is more popular. He defines the informal economy as specific segments of the economy (including a set of certain activities or organizational structures) located on the periphery or outside the formal economy.
The institutional approach offers a different perspective. Here
informal economy appears as a set of informal
rules governing economic behavior along with formal rules. From this point of view, the informal economy is not localized in certain market segments, it is an element of any economic activity, providing the necessary institutional flexibility. With this understanding, from a marginal phenomenon, it turns into a fundamental element of real economic processes.
We add that the first approach is mainly used for
macroeconomic calculations and aims to determine the extent of the informal economy and its constituent segments. The second approach - rather microeconomic - is focused on the study of the institutions and practices of everyday economic activity.
2.1. Informal economy as segments of the economy
Before revealing the specifics of informal rules and the main elements of the mechanism for deformalization of rules in economic activity from an institutional point of view, let's see how the problem of determining and measuring the scale of the informal economy is solved from the standpoint of a structural approach.
2.2 Definition of the informal economy .
There are many differences in the definition of informal economy (informal economy). Thus, the International Labor Organization, at the suggestion of the founder of the concept of the informal economy, K. Hart, in the early 1970s. was inclined to attribute to the informal economy the sector of self-employed workers and small entrepreneurs, which in many developing countries constitutes the lower, "soil" level of economic activity. It was thus a deprived, marginal sector in which the poorest urban strata are concentrated, struggling for their own economic survival.
A somewhat different view of this kind of marginal economy was demonstrated by E. De Soto. For him, the sign of the absence of state regulation is decisive. From this point of view, the informal economy becomes a way to overcome the administrative barriers set by formal state regulation, it serves as a manifestation of genuine market forces set in motion by the activity of the masses. E. De Soto perfectly described the process of distribution of new informal rules with their subsequent formalization in the law on the examples of spontaneous seizure of land property for housing construction, the development of illegal street trading and illegal local transport in Peru. A similar view of the informal economy as an "outlet" for free market forces, squeezed by excessive government regulation, was also supported by studies of the so-called "second economy" (second economy) in Eastern Europe.
In addition to the definitions of the informal economy as a set of sectors of the smallest enterprises in the spirit of K. Hart and (or) sectors that fall outside the scope of state regulation in the spirit of E. De Soto, it is also defined as:
■ hidden economy (unreported economy), not reflected in
tax reporting;
■ unrecorded economy, not reflected in
statistical data.
Note that the market segments identified on the basis of the indicated
four definitions, do not oppose each other, but clearly intersect. Our definition of the informal economy is based on the intersection of the last two approaches, according to which it is a set of economic activities that are not reflected in statistical and tax reporting. Thus, its allocation is associated not with the nature of organizational structures (the size of enterprises) and the results of economic activity (type of products and services), but with the forms of accounting for this activity. In other words, we are talking about an unobserved economy.
The non-inclusion of economic processes in formal reporting and, accordingly, the emergence of a non-observed economy may be associated with various motives for which market participants do not provide information about their activities. One part of it is deliberately hidden by market participants from statistical and tax authorities. The other part is not included in the reports due to incomplete coverage of the surveyed units or the inefficiency of constructing statistical surveys (for example, due to sampling bias), as well as ignorance and involuntary errors of economic agents who, in principle, do not hide their activities.
The informal economy covers the activities of two main
types of economic agents: households and enterprises.
We will turn to the shadow activities of enterprises a little later. As for household activities, it can be divided, for example, into the following segments:
■ formal economy - formal employment of household members in the labor market;
■ cash economy - their informal
employment in the labor market;
■ social economy - mutual assistance of households through interfamily networking;
■ home economy (household economy) - production of own food, small repair and construction
work for own needs of household members.
Informal market employment certainly belongs to the informal economy, as well as a special form of social economy associated with reciprocal exchanges between households. But natural home production, carried out for the needs of the family's self-sufficiency, is the subject of discussion. In some cases, it refers to the informal economy, along with informal market employment. In other cases, it is believed that the structure of the informal economy includes only forms of market activity that should be reflected in the tax and statistical reporting, but for one reason or another, they do not get into it, and actually domestic work is separated from the informal economy.
2.3. Definition of the shadow economy.
Frequent confusion in the use of terms is due to the fact that the informal economy is identified either with the shadow economy or with the criminal one. Meanwhile, it is important not to mix them. The informal economy is the broadest concept in this series.
It includes several segments, differing in degree
legality business transactions, including:
■ legal;
■ illegal;
■ semi-legal (shadow);
■ illegal (criminal).
The first type of informal economy is quite legal. This economic activity is informal, i.e. is not recorded in the reports and contracts, but at the same time does not violate either the current legislative norms or the property rights of other economic agents. As an example, consider the subsistence production of households mentioned above and social economy interfamily exchanges.
The non-legal part of the informal economy is another matter. To her
includes economic activity that "violates the property rights of other economic agents, but is not regulated by the current legislation and is thereby located in extra-legal (not covered by law) zones. A textbook example is the fraudulent activities of Russian organizers" financial pyramids" in the mid-1990s, as a result of which millions of people suffered, but which, at the same time, did not violate the legislation that existed at that time, but only used "holes" in this legislation. This should also include phenomena such as the erosion of property, forced bankruptcy with subsequent takeover of control, optimization of tax payments, production of products that do not explicitly imitate well-known brands and other actions that do not formally violate the law, but at the same time violate the economic property rights of other market participants, consumers or the state.
A particularly important segment of the informal economy forms a semi-
legal economy, including economic activity, which
Paradise is legal in its purposes and content, but periodically goes beyond the limits of the law in terms of the nature of the means used. This is the so-called shadow economy. First of all, it is associated with different ways tax evasion through special management schemes, including double-entry bookkeeping and the use of fictitious enterprises (one-day firms).
And finally, the last segment is the illegal (criminal) economy (illegal economy). We are talking about economic activities that are illegal in their very content: drug trafficking, illegal production and distribution of weapons, human trafficking, racketeering and the use of force. This is its difference from other segments, which are distinguished not by the nature of the products and services produced and exchanged, but by the methods of their production and the rules of exchange.
The criminal economy also includes activities that are legal in terms of the type of product produced, but carried out with a serious violation of technical standards (for example, the manufacture and distribution of counterfeit products with serious distortions of their natural composition). In all these cases, the criterion for the allocation of criminal activity is not only a violation of the law, but also the emergence of a threat to the safety, health and life of people.
It is important to emphasize that illegal segments do not form any significant share in modern economy. Much more important and large-scale is the shadow (semi-legal) economy of enterprises, in which a significant part of the market participants are involved in one way or another (at least for Russia in the 1990s, this situation was very typical). The main elements of the shadow economy of enterprises include:
■ hiding entrepreneurial activity(regular economic activity in the market without registration of enterprises
or the status of an individual entrepreneur);
■ concealment of part of business transactions (deliberately understatement of sales volumes in contracts and reporting);
■ Hiding a labor force (employment without registration of employment contracts);
■ concealment of income (tax evasion).
Most often in business practices, these elements of the shadow economy
closely intertwined, but they are analytically distinct. Let's say, in principle, you can not register, but at the same time pay honestly income tax(which, of course, rarely happens). And you can hide the operations of a registered enterprise (which happens much more often).
In legal practice, there is a tendency for any violation
the law to qualify as a criminal activity. But to spend
a clear formal line, dividing transactions into "legal" and "illegal", is often quite difficult even for a lawyer. As a result, a rather long continuum arises, consisting of "gray" and "black" business schemes, differing in the degree of legality and causing more or less suspicion on the part of the regulatory authorities.
Further complicating the situation is the fact that the boundaries between segments of the informal economy are very arbitrary. First, the legal framework itself is undergoing major changes. Yesterday, this or that activity was prosecuted by law, and today it is already a legal business. Something from the category of serious crimes moves into more tolerable "gray zones" The measure of responsibility for the same acts is also changing. Secondly, new forms of mandatory tax and statistical reporting are being introduced (for example, another version of a simplified reporting system for Russian small businesses and individual entrepreneurs), and economic activity begins to be formally reflected in a slightly different way.
The forms of "shadowing" of the economy also differ, which include:
■ the passive form, when areas of economic activity not previously regulated by legislation are banned as a result of the introduction of new formal rules of conduct or rules of control;
■ competitive form, when market participants at their own risk and
risk deliberately avoid regulation in order to save
transaction costs and tax evasion, making it part of its business strategy;
■ privileged form, when market participants provide themselves with exclusive or preferential terms in relation to compliance with formal rules (for example, bribing corrupt officials).
To conclude this section on general definitions,
Note that along with the shadow economy, there is also a fictitious economy, which, in fact, is the opposite of the informal economy. It is connected with the reflection in the statistical and financial statements of non-existent economic activity. In these cases financial documents reflect the fictitious movement of products and services between an enterprise and an intermediary or shell company. For example, money is transferred for products that no one was going to supply; imaginary marketing services are ordered; false export is carried out, allowing the return of value added tax; premiums are paid under "cold line" insurance contracts In business practices, sham and shadow activities are often closely linked, and sham transactions are widely used as a tool for shadow transactions. But their ratio can be strong
change over time.
2.4. Ways to measure the informal economy.
Failure to provide information to the statistical and tax authorities does not mean that the results of economic activity completely escape the attention of analysts. Part of this economic activity, not reflected in the reporting of economic agents, is taken into account by statistics due to special adjustments. And the other part finally falls out of the statistical data.
There is a standard set of approaches that
the informal economy is measured and the corresponding
estimates of gross domestic product. This set includes:
■ entrepreneurial approach;
■ labor approach;
■ consumer approach;
■ macroeconomic approach;
■ special surveys of segments of the informal economy.
The entrepreneurial approach is associated with an assessment of the share of small enterprises in the structure of the economy (employing a minimum number of workers - no more than five, ten or twenty).
Such a separation of the informal sector seems to us very contradictory. Indeed, a significant proportion of self-employed workers and small entrepreneurs are not registered and do not pay most taxes. But on the one hand, in this sector there are also groups of agents who, in all respects, belong to the formal economy. On the other hand, some of the smallest enterprises are completely excluded from the final calculations. In the first case, the share of the informal economy is overestimated; in the second case, it is underestimated. But most importantly,
the relative convenience of statistical calculations achieved using the parameter of the number of employed does not compensate for the vagueness of the initial criteria for determining informal activity.
To penetrate deeper into the essence of informal business
processes trying labor approach. It involves conducting household surveys or employed population, the purpose of which is to ascertain the extent of employment carried out without proper employment contracts. There are two options for calculations:
■ determination of the share of employees involved in informal
employment;
■ determination of the share of working time that employees spend on informal employment.
The second method seems to be more adequate, because the same worker can be involved simultaneously in the formal and informal segments of the economy. Moreover, as a rule, families combine different strategies, including informal domestic work, receiving informal additional earnings in the labor market and formal employment
In turn, the consumer approach also involves household surveys, but they are conducted to determine the extent of consumption of products and services acquired outside the formal economy. Thus, the entry is made not from the side of labor efforts, but from the side of the results of economic activity.
The survey methods are opposed by the macroeconomic approach. As general principle it is based on the analysis of discrepancies in macroeconomic parameters obtained using various statistical procedures. This approach includes a whole group of heterogeneous methods, including:
■ balance method;
■ monetary method;
■ method of natural resources.
The balance method, or method of commodity flows, involves comparing the volumes of the same type of product at different stages of its production, exchange and consumption. For example, the scale of production and use of a given product is compared with attributing the difference to the results of the functioning of the informal economy. Or, say, in the case of imported goods comparisons possible
volumes of products imported into the country and exported from the respective countries, as well as a comparison of the official customs value of imports and the volume of actual sales within the country.
Another calculation option is offered using the monetary method. The simplest option is to compare household income and expenditure. The size of the usual excess of the latter over the former is used to estimate the volume of informal incomes of the population. More complex calculations associated with measurements of the structure of the money supply. Here, the cash needs of the formal economy are estimated, and this amount is subtracted from the total amount of cash in circulation. The total volume of the informal economy is estimated through the resulting difference, following the assumption that market participants in it operate mainly with "black cash". True, in this case, non-cash payments fall out of sight.
The method of natural resources is fundamentally different. It comes from
prerequisites that the resource intensity of production is not subject to
strong changes within a limited period of time (provided there are no revolutionary technological breakthroughs). This makes it possible to assess the scale of the informal economy by the excess of the specific volume of resources consumed over output. finished products comparing, for example: electricity consumption and volume industrial production, cement consumption and construction scale, feed consumption and livestock production. Here, researchers proceed from the assumption that it is relatively easier to take into account the resources expended than the hidden volumes of finished products.
Specialists also conduct special surveys of market segments with a high concentration of informal business processes (for example, the study open markets). As a result of observations, the average prices of products and the approximate quantity of goods sold are established, which makes it possible to calculate the volume of products produced and sold by informal methods.
However, despite the abundance of methods for measuring informal
economy, experts are forced to admit that they all suffer
serious shortcomings. The data obtained are highly divergent, and the informal economy remains largely unmeasurable.
2.5. Factors in the development of the informal economy.
The development of the informal economy reflects several striking paradoxes. According to A. Portes, the first paradox lies in the fact that the informal economy, on the one hand, is close to the model of the free functioning of market forces, and on the other hand, it is very strongly rooted in network social ties, rests on relations of solidarity and mutual trust, t .e. on the accumulation and mobilization of social capital resources. In this case, the absence or reduced degree of state ("vertical") regulation is compensated by the development of social ("horizontal") regulation.
The second paradox of the informal economy is that
that in many respects its development is generated by the very expansion of the zone of formal regulation. It turns out that the introduction of formal rules leads to the exact opposite result (we will return to this effect below when describing the mechanism of rules deformalization).
Finally, the third paradox, which A. Portes drew attention to, is that the closer and harder it becomes state control over economic processes, the greater the share of economic activity falls out of the view of the authorities.
It is generally accepted that the scale of underground activity of enterprises is higher in countries with lower levels of economic development and a higher level of state intervention in economic processes. International experience also allows us to name some of the "classic" reasons for the growth of the shadow economy.
1. Complication of the situation on the labor market in the context of structural and
economic crisis, which gives rise to a surge in small business and self-employment, becoming a breeding ground for rapid growth shadow relationships.
2. Mass immigration from less developed countries, supplemented
outflow of the rural population to large cities and forced internal migration from depressed regions and "hot spots" It is the settlements of migrants that, as a rule, become enclaves of the shadow
economy.
3. Character government intervention into the economy. Presumably, the share of the economy that goes into the "shadow" is directly dependent on three parameters - the degree of regulatory intervention, the level of taxation, and the scale of corruption.
4. The opening of foreign markets with the subsequent intensification of competition, primarily with manufacturers from newly industrialized countries, encouraging entrepreneurs in more developed countries to reduce costs in various (including semi-legal) ways.
5. A shift in the sphere of labor relations towards greater informality and flexibility as a reaction to their excessive institutionalization and regulation in previous decades (primarily in the developed Western countries) 25 . At the same time, the deformalization of labor relations is often carried out in the interests of the employer, who does not want to bind himself with additional obligations to employees. But well-organized corporate alliances can also arise between the employer and employees, when both parties are interested in reducing the regulated zones, including in order to hide part of the income from taxation.
Further, from the problems of defining and measuring the informal economy as a set of sectors of the economy that oppose the formal sectors, we move on to an institutional approach that represents the informal economy as a set of relations inherent in all economic sectors without exception. From this point of view, any economic processes appear as a complex interweaving of legal and semi-legal, and sometimes even illegal ties.
Conclusion.
Relevance of the topic. The informal economy combines qualitatively heterogeneous types of activities that are not completely or partially subordinated to formal economic institutions, not supported by formal contracts and not recorded by statistical records. Because in modern Russia a significant part of economic practice, of course, satisfies this definition, the scale and significance of the informal economy becomes clear.
The composition of the informal economy is rather heterogeneous and includes shadow and criminal economic activity, domestic work for self-sustaining families and network exchanges between households on a non-market basis. It follows from this that even with a significant decrease in the shadow component, the informal economy will retain its positions at the expense of other segments and activities, but with a change in the consequences for the socio-economic development of the country as a whole.
In addition to practical relevance, it should be noted that
scientific. It is connected with the fact that a significant part of economic practice is not regulated by laws and contracts, but exists on the basis of social norms and private agreements. The question arises about the nature of such agreements, the mechanism for their adoption and maintenance.
The need to understand the informal economy in its diversity
manifestations, using a wide range of research approaches determines the relevance of the topic of the control work.
List of used literature:
1. Vinogradsky VG "Tools of the weak": the informal economy of peasant households. Sociological journal. 1999. - 4.
2. Gimpelson V. Informal employment in Russia. Pros and cons of the informal sector. Internet resources: http: // www.demoscope.ru/weekly/2003/0197/tema02.php.
3. Gimpelson V. Informal employment in Russia. Structural shifts in the Russian informal sector are more significant than quantitative changes. Internet resources: http: // www.demoscope.ru/weekly/2003/0197/tema05.php.
4. Interview with E. Morgunov // Personnel management, 2000. - 8.
5. Portes A. Informal economy and its paradoxes // Economic sociology, Volume 4, 2003. - 5.
6. Radaev V. Informal economy and non-contractual relations in Russian business // Informal economy: Russia and the world. M.: Logos, 1999.
7. Sinyavskaya O.V. Informal employment in Russia: measurement, scale, dynamics // Economic sociology. 2005
LECTURE PLAN
1.1. The concept and structure of the informal economy:
a. Opening up the informal sector in developing countries and in developed countries
b. Two approaches to defining the informal sector
in. Segmentation of the informal economy
1.2.Conceptual scheme of the informal economy. Criticism of the informal sector concept
Reasons for the development of the informal economy
2.1. Reasons for the existence of the informal economy in developing countries
2.2. Reasons for the existence of the informal economy in developed countries
2.3.Global reasons for the development of the informal economy
The informal economy of Russia
3.1.From the Soviet economy to the informal economy of modern Russia
3.2. Informal economy and network organization of space in Russia
a. Russian network space
b. Shadow economy
in. home economics
Socio-cultural foundations of the informal economy
4.1. The value system of Russians
a. Geoclimatic factor of the value system
b. The religious factor of the value system
b. The historical factor of the value system of values
4.2. Empirical assessments of the value system of Russians
Shadow and criminal business
Corruption in Russia
Shadow labor market in Russia
7.1.Problems of legalization of employment relations
7.2.Formal and informal employment
8. Methods for assessing the shadow economy: a critical analysis
8.1 Direct methods
a. Assessment of the shadow economy by the structure of household consumption
b. Assessment of the shadow economy based on the discrepancy between household income and expenditure
8.2 Indirect methods
Monetary approach to assessing the shadow economy
The phenomenon of "extra money"
Circulation of large banknotes
Ratio of cash and bank deposits
"causal" method
transactional method
Criticism of the monetary approach to assessing the shadow economy
Method of alternative calculations of GDP
Generalization, conclusions
Foreword
The informal economy combines qualitatively heterogeneous types of activities that are not completely or partially subordinated to formal economic institutions, not supported by formal contracts and not recorded by statistical records.
The composition of the informal economy: shadow and criminal economic activity, domestic work for self-support of families and network exchanges between households on a non-market basis. Scientific relevance - a significant part of economic practice is not regulated by laws and contracts, but exists on the basis of social norms and private agreements. The question arises about the nature of such agreements, the mechanism for their adoption and maintenance.
1. Informal economy: concept, segmentation, traditions of study
1.1. The concept and structure of the informal sector of the economy
One of the most common mistakes is to consider the terms "informal sector" and "informal economy" as synonymous with those employed in the informal sector and informally employed. Indeed, the history of the study of the informal order in the economy began with the problematization of the informal sector. At the initial stage, the informal sector exhausted the theme of the informal economy and in this sense was its synonym. This applies only to developing countries. However, over time, the geographical area of research has expanded, capturing the developed countries of the West as an empirical base. From the narrow concept of the informal sector, scientists have moved on to the study of the meaningfully diverse informal economy.
INFORMAL SECTOR: CONCEPT, TRADITIONS OF STUDY
Is Russia's informal sector big? Estimates of the number of people employed in the informal sector of the Russian economy differ quite significantly. Behind this are differences in calculation methods and databases used. Thus, E. Sindyashkina estimated employment in the informal sector according to the balance of labor resources and demographic statistics at 4.2 - 4.8 million people.
A more detailed and credible assessment of the informal sector in Russia according to the Population Survey on Employment Problems (ONPZ) is given by V. Gimpelson, including three categories of workers in the informal sector: individual entrepreneurs without forming a legal entity, employed by individuals and working individually, including production at home for sale.
As a result, according to V. Gimpelson's calculations, employment in the informal sector in the main or only job in 2001 (on average per year) was estimated at 7136 thousand people, which is 11% of the total employment of the population. Another 2.05 million people used the informal sector for additional work.
Often, uninitiated readers equate the concepts of "employment in the informal sector" and "informal employment", and yet the difference between them is fundamental. In the concept of the informal sector, the unit of analysis is the enterprise, and in the concept of informal employment, the workplace.
If employment in the informal sector is the totality of those employed in enterprises classified by Rosstat as the informal sector, then the concept of informal employment covers workers whose labor relations are not subject to labor legislation; accordingly, such workers are not covered by taxation and social protection. Such jobs may belong to both the informal and formal sectors of the economy. For the formal sector, the most common form of informal employment is employment based on verbal agreement without a written contract. Informal employment also includes workers under work contracts, since such contracts, despite their written form, do not contain provisions aimed at ensuring the social protection of workers.
a. Opening up the informal sector in developing countries
The phenomenon of the informal sector has been studied and terminologically legitimized in research on developing countries. The introduction of the term was due to the presence in these countries of significant groups of people who are not involved in the organized labor market, but at the same time have created their own employment system, subordinated to the idea of survival. This has manifested itself in a variety of activities that exist in the form of self-employment or small family businesses. The concept of "informal sector" united diverse forms of employment based on informal, personalized relationships with consumers, employees and creditors. At this stage, the informal sector was synonymous with the informal economy.
Briefly, the history of the study of the informal sector is as follows. True, initially, other terms were used to refer to what would later be called the informal sector.
Back in the 1940s, the Danish anthropologist J. Boeke expressed the idea of the “duality” of the economy of developing countries, which is likened to a “normal” market economy by only one of its “parts”. In the 1950s, A. Lewis developed a two-sector model of development, highlighting the sector of modern capitalist firms with a focus on profit maximization and the sector of peasant farms, where the methods of economic motivation and distribution principles are extremely ambiguous and diverse. An attempt to use this scheme in econometrics is associated with the work of J. Harris and M. Todaro, who in the 1970s brought the idea of a dual economy to the level of a two-sector system of economic equilibrium equations.
In 1963, K. Girtz, who studied entrepreneurship in Indonesia, introduced the concept of "bazaar economy" (bazaar-type) as opposed to the term "firm-type economy" as the economy of large Western corporations that provide workers with the protection of the law ("bazaar-type"). economy" and "firm-centred economy"). The national bureaucracy saw these firms as a hedge against market "failures" by creating opportunities for monopoly dominance in the markets of these countries. In contrast, the bazaar economy was individualistic and competitive. The economy organized in the form of firms was described as more efficient, capital-intensive, with higher labor productivity. The "bazaar" economy, on the contrary, is labour-intensive, low-productive, small-scale, and low-income. Later, in works on Morocco, Girtz emphasized that modern economics uses the "bazaar model" in the study of decision-making on competitive markets, while in practice the bureaucracies of developing countries actively protect monopolies. But Girtz's analytical terminology was not accepted by economists.
Usually, the introduction of the term "informal sector" into scientific circulation is associated with the name of K. Hart, who noted that “rejected by the structure of formal opportunities, people from the bottom of the urban proletariat are looking for informal ways to increase their incomes. The beginning of Hart's fame and the victorious march of the concept of "informal sector" was his report "Urban Unemployment in Africa", made in 1971 and devoted to the study of the structure of employment in Ghana. The message of the job is that the poor in Accra, Ghana are not unemployed. This was news, since large companies provided a very limited number of jobs, and, accordingly, economists estimated unemployment in Africa at 50% or more. The imagination painted a picture of Depression-era America with downcast beggars on the streets, but the streets of Accra were full of life. crowds street vendors, porters, taxi drivers were busy with business. The informal economy was the self-organization of people who were excluded from participation in the enjoyment of state-guaranteed benefits and who created their own means of survival.
K. Hart's ideas were accepted so quickly that the ILO (International Labor Organization) report, which used this concept in Kenya, came out earlier (in 1972) than K. Hart himself published his work on Ghana (in 1973).
A real breakthrough in the study of the informal sector was the empirical research conducted under the auspices of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the World Bank. Similar studies were carried out in Colombia (1970), Sri Lanka (1971), Kenya (1972) and other third world countries. These projects were supposed to answer the question of the degree of applicability to the labor market of developing countries of the concept of unemployment, adopted in the developed countries of the West. In fact, it was about research that has a clear applied value - the clarification of assistance programs for developing countries. As a result, the informal sector was legalized terminologically and empirically described.
Discipline: Economy
The type of work: Essay
Topic: Informal economy and household structure
Informal Economy and Household Structure
The topic “informal economy and household structure” was chosen by me not by chance. In modern conditions, when so much is said about the development of market relations and which is so little observed in reality, the informal economy has been widely developed. The household is a significant segment of the informal economy. To one degree or another, according to analysts, about half of the working population of our country is involved in the informal economy.
Before analyzing this phenomenon, let's give the concept of "informal economy".
At first, the concept of "informal economy" was perceived as a synonym for the concepts of "poverty", "underdevelopment". Economic theory defined informal employment as the lot of those who do not have the opportunity to settle in the formal sector, as a survival strategy, an anachronism.
However, later this term was returned to the meaning that K. Hart discovered - a sign of the entrepreneurial activity of the population.
K. Hart (1973), a British anthropologist, in his study of the urban labor force in Ghana, introduced a distinction between those whose relationship with employers was formalized by contracts and those who earned their living informally.
The speed with which the term introduced by K. Hart was developed, testified that the concept of\"informal economy \" is able to cover the phenomena of a more general order than the specifics of the labor market in Ghana.
Consider the modern definitions of the informal economy, which can be found in economic dictionaries:
INFORMAL ECONOMY - a set of economic activities that are not covered by legal, fiscal and statistical accounting. The informal economy is represented by a wide range of informal relations that are inherent in the economies of developed, developing and post-socialist countries. The informal economy is sometimes referred to as "parallel economy", "second economy". It fits into the structure of the modern market economy, interacts and intertwines with the official economy.
INFORMAL ECONOMY a set of economic relations that are not reflected in official reporting and formal contracts.
Typology J. Gershuni:
It is advisable to supplement these definitions with the statement of V.V. Radaeva, who noted that\"the informal economy does not just indicate individual forms of economy, but denotes a general economic and sociological approach to the world of the economy. The informal economy appears as a certain logic of the actions of economic agents \".
To better understand what the informal economy is, let's consider its individual segments, which are the shadow economy and the household.
The shadow economy is an activity that bypasses certain formalized institutions of economic practice (registration and licensing, taxation, reporting, etc.).1
This phenomenon is dangerous next, non-observance of any norms or their ignoring leads to the fact that their place is taken by other norms. There are illegal relationships. Two types of such relations can be distinguished: corruption - illegal connection with legal representatives of power and, for example, attempts to acquire a "roof" - the desire to establish regular relations with legal and illegal power partners.2
One of the negative points is the fact that such activities are perceived as rational behavior, for example, the issue of paying taxes. For many tax evaders, it doesn't even occur to them that they are doing something wrong. The propaganda carried out in Russia in 2002-2004 on television “pay and sleep well” did not bring any tangible results. This happened for two reasons: firstly, non-payment of taxes is “right” according to the majority, and secondly you can not pay and sleep peacefully, being sure that retribution will not come. Similar examples can be given for other types of activities that bypass formalized institutions.
Another block of the informal economy is the home economy, which initially assumes informal institutional norms as a basis. The home economy does not violate economic legislation, it is simply not regulated by it. Non-contractual domestic work is the norm of society, and not the result of the desire of its participants to increase the profitability of activities.3
We will consider this block of the informal economy in more detail below.
It would also be advisable to consider the classification of the informal economy, presented by V. Radaev, which seems to be the closest to reality. He singles out such main components as the legal informal economy, the extralegal economy, the semi-legal economy, and the criminal economy.
The legal informal economy is an economic activity that does not violate either the current legislation or the rights of other economic agents, which is not recorded in reports and contracts.
Extra-legal economy is an economic activity that violates the rights of other economic agents and is located in extra-legal zones. Here the author includes the activities of financial pyramids, as well as violations of environmental safety, lobbying in favor of individual entities, expressed in the provision of benefits and subsidies as an exception.
A semi-legal economy is an economic activity that generally complies with the law, but periodically goes beyond it. According to the author, these are barter transactions, methods of tax evasion, including the formation of “black cash”, work without a license and patent, employment without registration.
The criminal economy is economic activity that is prohibited by law and systematically violates the law. This is smuggling, drug and arms trafficking, prostitution, human trafficking. four
After we have considered the components of the informal economy, we can more clearly imagine the magnitude of this phenomenon. Thus, according to the estimates of the State Statistics Committee, every ninth man and every ninth woman was employed in the informal economy in 2001, however, it should be noted that there are no real statistics on this phenomenon and, in my opinion, the number of those involved in the informal economy is much larger than official statistics. Here is how Morgunov E. explains it: “The existence of Russia over the past ten years is paradoxical. It is paradoxical in the sense that if we believe the statistics that represent the development of the state economy, on the one hand, and the capitalist economy of Russia, on the other, it is not clear how, say, half of Russians survive. Over the decade there is a sharp drop in production, there is a sharp drop in income, there is a drop in productivity. And if something like this happened elsewhere in the world, it would lead to famine and levels of social breakdown that Russia does not have.”5
What caused such a large scale of this phenomenon? Modern economic conditions do not provide a real opportunity for decent earnings. Often the question of participation in the informal economy is a matter of survival. Here it would be appropriate to say that the informal economy is not limited to developing countries or countries with economies in transition. This phenomenon is also observed in developed countries, but the degree of its development is different. Let's look at examples of why in one strong state the informal economy is characterized by scale, while in another it is not.
Example of the USA and Great Britain in the late 1970s: crisis and dissatisfaction with state social policy surge of informal activity in the USA and its absence in Great Britain. The reason lies in the characteristics of the social structure in society:
In general, the existence of the informal economy can be explained as follows:
The informal economy is characterized by a number of paradoxes. Thus, the absence of formality brings the economy closer to the "natural" state the ideal of the free market. In fact, the closer the real state is to the ideal of a market free from state regulation, the stronger is its dependence on social ties. Since there is no legal protection against fraud in the informal economy, there is no way to go to court. Thus, it is the informal economy that is largely rooted in social ties and relationships.
The second paradox is the fact that the attempts of the state to get rid of the informal economy by imposing rules and control create favorable conditions for its functioning.
And, finally, the third paradox is the fact that the more reliable the control of compliance with the rules, the less information about the scale and forms of informal activity, the weaker the basis for developing measures. public policy in relation to the informal economy.6
Thus, we can conclude that the scale and dynamics of the informal economy depend on global trends in the development of informal relations. They are also determined by the specific historical conditions of each country. Wherein the most important factor is the degree of effectiveness of regulatory mechanisms, both market and state.
You can talk as much as you like about the dangers of the informal economy, about measures to combat it, but until the state offers its citizens something in return, does not provide an opportunity to receive a decent legal income, it is at least inappropriate to talk about the fight against the informal economy.
Of course, significant employment in the informal sector gives rise to a number of social and economic problems.
Here is how V. Gimpelson describes the main problems generated by the informal economy: “Incomes from activities are not taxed here, so budgets and social funds lose significant funds. Since this sector is unproductive (due to low capital intensity and the predominance of primitive technologies), its development may be constrained the economic growth in general, representing an irrational diversion of resources. The development of informal employment tends to exacerbate already excessive income inequality. The labor rights of citizens working in this sector are not protected by law in any way. Employed here find themselves in a very vulnerable and unprotected position, deprived of many labor rights and all social benefits. Like any shadow income, cash circulating in this sector can fuel corruption and crime. Unable to create their own lobbying organizations or defend their political and economic interests, workers in the informal sector are excluded from the political process. The larger the size of this sector, the stronger its negative impacts can be manifested.”7
He also defines the positive aspects of the informal economy: “However, the informal sector, if it is not excessive, has its undeniable positive aspects for a developing or transition economy. In conditions of deep or protracted recession in countries where the state is not able to provide effective protection against unemployment, it is this sector that provides some social support to potential unemployed. In particular, it allows those who have lost their jobs to have earnings and avoid sliding into hopeless poverty, and for the state, which is under severe pressure on the budget, to save on unemployment benefits. After all, the income of informal sector entities constitutes an element of aggregate demand in the economy and is spent mainly within the framework of the formal sector.”8
As already mentioned, the informal economy is inherent not only in developing countries or countries with economies in transition, but it becomes obvious that its scale is directly related to the underdevelopment of the economy.
Thus, in the course of reforming the Russian economy, legal and economic conditions to reduce informal-legitimate relations, oust the shadow economy and strengthen the fight against its criminal manifestations. This will make it possible to somewhat reduce the scale of the informal economy, however, as practice shows, it is unlikely that it will be possible to completely get rid of it.
In no case should you try to bring the informal economy to a legal level, for example, try to tax it. In this case, it is appropriate to cite the statement of E. Morgunov: “I was recently asked the following question: what is your attitude to the issue of taxes on the informal economy? I said, I hope they will fail ... In this dispute between people and the government, a difficult government that gives very little to people, and people who are trying to somehow survive and defend themselves, I know whose side I am on - on the human side. In a rich country, you have to pay taxes. And in a poor country, where the informal economy allows people to survive despite the government, taxing insufficient income is stupid and also, in my opinion, immoral. Stupidity, because it will not be possible to collect and the collection fee is very high. It is immoral because a fair tax must be clearly progressive.”9
Thus, on the basis of the foregoing, we can conclude that the informal economy is inherent in the Russian economy, and on a scale significantly exceeding the statistical data. To combat this phenomenon, first of all, it is necessary to create acceptable economic conditions for managing.
Let us now turn to the consideration of the concept and structure of the household.
Home economy This is not any activity within the household, it includes only those activities that do not aim to make a profit from home activities, it is intended purely for domestic consumption, but not for selling home-made pies at the railway station.
The concept of household and family are separated. The family includes relatives, and the household is a collection of people who conduct joint economic activities: they have a single budget, they do not share the shelves in the refrigerator ...
How is homework different from leisure? If domestic work can be replaced by hired labor, then this is domestic work; if this idea is absurd, then this is leisure. In addition, everything related to child care is work, while raising children is leisure.
The following reasons for the presence of a home economy can be distinguished:
Each of the reasons for the emergence of the home economy is characteristic of a particular type of economy.
So, in a planned economy, the main reason for the existence of a home economy is to overcome the shortage of goods; in a market economy, the home economy smooths out the contradictions between individualized needs and mass production, and in a transitional economy, the home economy makes it possible to overcome the shortage of money.
The presence of the above reasons explains why it is impossible to associate the household only with low incomes of the population. The impoverishment of the population actualizes the motive for saving money, which really leads to the expansion of home production. However, with the growth of the welfare of society, saving as a motive for housekeeping fades into the background, and the need to meet individualized needs increases. In this regard, it seems disputable to judge the unambiguous connection between domestic work in Russia and the economic and social problems of the transition period. In a more favorable situation, the domestic economy is preserved, but on a different ideological basis, on a different scale and in different forms.
In other words, in the largest economic centers home economy - voluntary service of individualized needs; in the rest of the territory - the forced satisfaction of basic unified needs. In the first case, domestic work is due to the ability to buy “not quite right”, in the second - the lack of funds for the purchase of finished goods. At the household level, this is manifested in the fact that some housewives cook gooseberry jam stuffed with walnuts, while others simply translate the fruits of their own country efforts into jam.10
Home economics can be studied in the following ways:
The peculiarity of the home economy is the inability to adequately assess its value. Thus, Western practice considers the home economy in terms of value, but this raises the question of how to evaluate the work of cooking, since there is no single rate for this work. The second way to evaluate is by the opportunity cost of the time spent, but here the problem also arises, the same job, say, cooking borscht, costs differently for a lawyer and a janitor.
Describing the domestic economy of Russia, it is advisable to recall the sayings here: “Need for invention is cunning”, “If you want to live, be able to spin!”. All of this corresponds exactly to our reality. What modern housewives do not come up with to feed and clothe the family.
Let us quote excerpts from an article by V. G. Vinagradsky compiled on the basis of data recorded in the course of field sociological studies of the peasantry of South Russia: “Food is, it seems to me, the very best field for economy and ingenuity. Well, I've never baked bread before. Now I'm baking it. And now I don't just bake bread. Because over time, I realized that yeast dough is the most profitable! You don't need to put eggs in it. What do you need? Sour, a little sugar, vegetable oil. And that's all! And there is a lot of testing. You can bake and buns, and pies, and pies, and whatever you want. And rolls to choose from: you want sweet, you want with herbs. So I bake bread myself, because bread is now expensive to buy. Me...
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