This study on the relations between tourism policies and the tourism development conditions in the Eastern Cape of South Africa is a contribution to the on-going research projects on the transformation that has taken place in the post-1994 development process of South Africa. One theme associated with these studies relates to the important roles that have been played by public bodies in influencing the nature of the transformation in the development of South Africa. The study is based on the expectation that the current policies can open up more investments and other opportunities in the tourism sector to the benefit of the provincial economy. To find out the concrete nature of the changes associated with the current tourism development policies, data collection was organized from six groups of stakeholders in the tourism sector of the 39 local municipalities of the Eastern Cape Province. The use of factor analysis led to the identification of five hierarchies or clusters indicating the levels of inequalities in the tourism development of the province. To obtain an understanding of the processes behind the observed inequalities, the stakeholders were given the opportunity to disclose their concrete activities as they related to the policies. The findings indicate that generally, much has changed since 1994, as a result of the levelling of the playing field in the tourism sector for both the producers and consumers in the industry. It is recommended, however, that measured in terms of the maximum benefits that could be derived from the provincial tourism sector, the government officials associated with the tourism sector in particular need to provide more effective leadership in the implementation of the current tourism development policies. The thrust of the study is that the tourism policies in the Eastern vii Cape can only generate the maximum positive benefits if, inter alia, all the stakeholders in the tourism industry are empowered to produce at their maximum. / Geography / (D. Litt et Phil. (Geography))

Much debate surrounds the effect the minimum wage has on employment. Economic theory suggests that the minimum wage acts as a price floor in the labor market and thus leads to disemployment. However, empirical evidence from a variety of industries, states, and age groups suggests that the minimum wage has negative, negligible, and even positive effect on employment. This Economics/Public Policy Analysis thesis is the first study to analyze the effect the minimum wage has on employment in the informal sector. I apply four OLS regressions with various levels of specifications on five dependent variables: hourly wage, log hourly wages, hours worked, log daily income, and percentage working. My results suggest that economic theory holds true in the informal sector with regards to the California minimum wage mandate of 2016: the minimum wage had a positive and statistically significant effect on hourly wage, with average hourly wages increasing by $1.88; the minimum wage had a negative and statistically significant effect on percentage working, with average number of workers dispatched to jobs decreasing by 15%.

The study is about enterprises in the formal and informal sectors in sub-Saharan Africa and consists of three separate but connected essays. The first essay examines whether or not structural reforms in the business regulatory environment, trade sector, and the financial sector, can influence access to debt financing for investment by enterprises in sub-Sahara Africa. The data is from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. The analyses involve panel data models. The results are indicative that taken together; structural policy reforms reduce debt-financing constraints. Reforms in the business regulatory environment and the financial sector increase the likelihood of access to debt financing. However, for trade, beyond a threshold, further reductions in the tariff and non-tariff barriers make it harder for enterprises to obtain debt financing. These results have implications for the type of reforms pursued in various countries. The second essay examines how social capital, education, and liquidity constraints influence the decision of an entrepreneur to operate either in the formal or informal sector. For enterprises that did not register and operating for less than five years, there is evidence that the likelihood of running in the informal sector, as opposed to the formal sector, decreases with the entrepreneurial level of education while social capital increases this likelihood. However, for enterprises in the informal sector, operating for over five years, liquidity constraints impedes formalisation. In the long run, the decision to stay informal or formalise depends on funding constraints, the incidence of taxes in the formal sector and the perception that there are no benefits from operating in the formal sector. The third essay is about the relationship between enterprises in the formal and informal sector and aims to uncover, at least in part, whether or not social and human capitals are important in facilitating the linkages between enterprises in the formal and the informal sectors. The analysis involves flexible binary generalised extreme value models. The results are indicative that for both male and female entrepreneurs, social and human capitals have significant positive real effects on the likelihood of linkages. / October 2016

This study estimates the size of the informal economy in South Africa, evaluates the macroeconomic implications of this, and then concludes with possible effects that all of this might have on policy. The research is conducted as a South African case study, and uses time-series analysis for the period 1966-2002. Recently there has been a revival of interest in the informal economies of a number of countries. The revival has been driven largely by an increase in the size of informal economies, in both absolute and relative terms. South Africa is no exception to this trend: more and more people are entering the informal economy. The rapid urbanization of the black population, the slow pace of economic growth, the decrease in the incidence of formal employment, the promotion of small-, medium- and microenterprises (SMMEs), as well, finally, as the so-called ‘informalization’ of formal businesses are all factors contributing to the recent growth in the South African informal economy. There is not much literature on the South African informal economy, and what there is tends to be narrow, specializing in particular aspects of the informal economy. Moreover, the subject is controversial: there seems to be little agreement on the definition and use of informal economy estimates in both economic analysis and policy-making. In response to this situation, therefore, the present study examines the problem of defining the informal economy and considers the reasons why people might prefer to operate in the informal economy rather than in the formal economy. By III examining the various definitions of the South African informal economy and by looking at the reasons why people are operating in it, it is possible to gain an understanding of the various approaches used in international literature on the subject to measure the economic contribution of informal economies. A critique of the different approaches suggests that the currency demand approach is an appropriate method for measuring the informal economy in a developing country such as South Africa. The results of the analysis indicate that while the size of the informal economy stood at an average of 9.5% of GDP for the period 1966-2002, the size of the informal economy during the period 1966-1993 decreased. After 1993, the size of the informal economy remained relatively constant. These estimates of size are then used to test the nature of the relationships between the informal and formal economies. It was found that the informal economy has effects in, and on, the formal economy. This finding suggests, ultimately, that an increase in the size of the informal economy will ultimately contribute to an increase in the growth of the economy as a whole. These findings are used in the present thesis in the formulation of policy recommendations regarding the regulatory and macroeconomic policies currently in place in South Africa. The recommendations cover many areas: variable bias, monetary policy, fiscal policy and taxation, capital markets, and employment policy. Areas for further research are also indicated. The study concludes that macroeconomic policy which largely ignores or neglects the informal economy in its modelling IV and planning increases the likelihood that such policy may be overly contractionary, or that it may have unintended consequences. As a consequence, the South African informal economy should be included in all macroeconomic models – whether monetary, fiscal, or development models. The due consideration of the informal economy takes on even further significance in the South African context: it consists largely of the formerly disadvantaged and vulnerable groups of society – the very people who have been given priority in the government’s broad medium-term macroeconomic policy (i.e. GEAR). The estimates presented in this study should therefore make a contribution to macroeconomic modelling and planning. / Prof. Elsabe Loots

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and management, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Sciences. Johannesburg, November 2017. / The conceptualisation of core values indicate that they are guiding principles in shaping organisational culture. Furthermore, values enhance firm efficiency if they are well integrated in all business processes. Despite the fact that core values motivate employees, SMEs in the informal economies of developing countries do not provide a list of core values to employees. The purpose of this study, therefore; was to establish the commonly practiced core values in Uganda’s informal economy and whether such core values could motivate and reinforce behaviour among employees and at the same time, foster entrepreneurial performance. The study adopted a mixed methods approach. In this case, the sample size for qualitative interviews was twenty-five respondents whereas the sample size for the quantitative survey was three hundred and eighty-six (386) respondents. The interviews were guided by a semi-structured interview guide and revealed that the commonly practiced core values in Uganda’s informal economy are; cleanliness, trust, fairness, responsibility and respect. It was established that core values motivate and reinforce employee behaviour. The quantitative survey was done using a questionnaire with a five- point Likert scale. Hypotheses and mediation tests were carried out by way of structural equation modeling, using AMOS and Sobel’s test respectively. Results from all hypotheses’ tests indicated significant positive relationships between predictor and outcome variables. However, the relationships of; motivation and entrepreneurial performance and legitimacy and entrepreneurial performance were positive, but insignificant. In addition, it was discovered that the reinforcement theory is applicable in Uganda’s informal economy. Based on the results of this research, it is recommended that SMEs should seek to acquire skills on how to fully turn legitimacy and motivation into business advantage and how to use core values as tools for advertising and marketing the business. Finally, the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, with help from local governments, should design a policy to tempt SMEs to voluntarily engage in community service, especially cleaning up water and drainage channels to improve cleanliness in the communities as well as improving on business legitimacy. / GR2018

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Informal sector operators in many cities of the global South face extensive harassment, criminalization and restricted access to public spaces despite the important role the sector is playing in urban development. Using Lefebvre’s theory of right to the city the study aimed to investigate how the city of Masvingo has embraced urban informality. The study also examined how informal sector operators in the city of Masvingo have been accessing –urban space and creating opportunities for the informal sector to access such space. The study also examined how the provision of essential services in the city has been extended to the people in the informal sector as a way of granting them their right to urban social and infrastructural services. The research took a survey design where a cross section of Masvingo city, including the city centre, residential areas and industrial areas, was sampled for the study. Methodologically the research used a mixed method approach to data collection and analysis, where both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. A questionnaire survey constituted the quantitative component of the study and it was administered to the informal sector operators, In-depth interviews and field observations were at the core of the qualitative methods that were used in the research. In-depth interviews were done with key informants in the city and these included officials in the city council, government ministries, and leaders of informal sector associations and civic groups in the city. Field observations were done in areas where the informal activities were carried out to assess the provision of services and the environment in which informal activities were operating. Data collected through interviews and field observations was analysed qualitatively and the SPSS was used for quantitative data analysis. The research found that informal operators in the city of Masvingo are being disenfranchised of their right to the city in various ways. They are not afforded the right to express their lives in the city centre as the city authorities are determined to flush out all informal structures and activities from the city centre in line with their modern city goals. The planning system in the city does not recognise informal activities as approved land user in the city centre and they do not plan for them in new spatial development projects. However, informal activities continue to occupy contested spaces, where they are in direct contravention of existing regulatory framework and this has been used to marginalise them and deny them of their right to the city. Right to the city calls for all urban residents to have access to the city centre and that access to city space should be based on use values rather than exchange values (Lefebvre 1996). Also, informal sector operators based at various sites in the city are generally denied access to essential services such as waste collection, provision of water and sewer services. / 2020-08-31

A country of approximately 4 million citizens, Lebanon is home to over half a million Asian and black African migrant workers concentrated in its capital city of Beirut. An estimated one quarter of Lebanese households employ a live-in female migrant domestic worker on a full time basis. Over the last decade, many of these women have fled domestic confinement to enter Lebanon’s informal labour market, and have recently been joined by hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing war across the country’s eastern border. This dissertation examines the social worlds of these migrant workers. It demonstrates that non-Arab migrant workers in Beirut are not simply temporary workers, but constitute a specific subject category structured by socioeconomic relations that determine the possibility of their life in the city. Specifically, it argues that migrant workers in Beirut are subjects denied recognition, and who therefore lie outside the nation-state, while having forged an urban belonging inside the city. I demonstrate this by examining migrant workers’ interactions with the joint nexus of citizen-state authority, their experiences of time in both labour and rest, their modes of receiving address and inhabiting speech in the Arabic language, and their intimate and collective relations in the city. Together with growing numbers of male Syrian refugees, migrant workers in Beirut have created an urban underground that has transformed both what and who it means to live in the city today. This dissertation offers an ethnographic map of these transformations.

Informal sector participation has been described as a trap associated with impoverishment (Cassim, 1982); as the survivalist responses of marginalised persons with no alternatives (Habib, 2005); yet it has also been described as potentially dynamic (House, 1984). The former conceptions prescribe an identity to informal sector participants, with little consideration given to individual potential and individual action as means to escape impoverishment and a survivalist condition. An entrepreneurial orientation is associated with increased earnings in certain environments according to Lumpkin and Dess (1996), a process orientation that can be learned. Research testing the relationship between entrepreneurship and performance has been problematic due to the different definitions offered by different entrepreneurship scholars (Cunningham and Lischeron, 1991; Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). In this context, entrepreneurial orientation as a construct was utilised to overcome these challenges. Entrepreneurial orientation or certain of its dimensions have been associated with positive effects related to performance (Chow, 2006; Coulthard, 2007; De Clerq and Ruis, 2007; Jantunen, Puumalainen, Saarenketo, and Kylaheiko, 2005) or with negative relationships (Naldi, Nordqvist, Sjőberg and Wiklund, 2007). Innovativeness, competitive aggressiveness, risk taking propensity, autonomy and proactiveness, the dimensions of an entrepreneurial orientation (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996), and the effects of certain contextual factors were tested as to their associations with entrepreneurial performance. Entrepreneurial performance was defined in this context as a construct comprising earnings and continuance satisfaction. In terms of entrepreneurial performance, the contention of Lumpkin and Dess (1996) that an entrepreneurial orientation is associated with learning: the how of entrepreneurship, or the learnable process conception of Stevenson and Jarillo (1990), was also tested by investigating contextual factors and how they shaped an entrepreneurial orientation and contributed to entrepreneurial performance. ii In this context a quantitative investigation of informal sector street traders and providers of street-side services was undertaken using a survey format. The specific relationships influencing entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial performance were investigated. Results contested assumptions that prescribed a theoretically permanent and immutable survivalist orientation to certain informal participants in that education and learning related factors were found to be associated with entrepreneurial orientation and increased earnings. Entrepreneurial orientation was found to be associated with increased earnings along the dimension of risk taking propensity, and higher levels of autonomy were found to be associated with continuance satisfaction. The relationships between entrepreneurial and contextual factors were investigated and insights developed regarding potential street trader upliftment.

There are many existing studies characterizing the informal sector in Latin America, but the literature fails to fully examine the interactions between gender and disadvantaging factors on the probability of informal employment and its returns to wage. This analysis uses survey data from Argentina (2001) and Uruguay (2006) to examine the heterogeneous effects of number of children under 5, education, minority status, and migrant status on male and female informal employment and income. Being female interacts with number of children under 5 to create no effect on probability of informal employment, in contrast to a significant negative effect for men. Education has a greater negative effect on probability of informal work for females, while minority status and migrant status have a greater positive effect on the probability of being employed informally for females. Additionally, working informally is associated with a negative effect on wage for both females and males, but this effect is less for females. Number of children under 5 also negatively affects female wages, while there is no such effect for men.

<p>Since the Beijing Conference on women in 1995 ‘gender-mainstreaming’ has been the new buzz word within the international development regime. Gender equality is increasingly believed to be a major determinant for socioeconomic development in the Global South. However, the development agenda and the gender strategies for the Global South are still outlined and determined by development professionals at head quarters of the development business in the in the Global North. Heavy critique has been launched against the prevailing international development paradigm, not only for being increasingly centralised and categorised as business, which distances global policy from the lived realities in the Global South, but also for obscuring unequal power relations between men and women behind the political correctness of gender.</p><p>This study explores how gender and gender power relations are perceived and approached in practical development work in India. Through the example of the Self-Employed Women’s Association, SEWA, my ambition is to give an example of how gender bias and social inequality can be targeted through practical socioeconomic development work in a way that is both context sensitive and sprung from the Global South. SEWA is a women’s organisation, as well as a trade union and a cooperative movement. Aiming at improving employment and social and economic security for the female workers in the informal sectors, SEWA has organised its 800 000 members and social security services into cooperatives to bring about a process of social transformation with women at the centre.</p><p>My empirical findings show that SEWA approaches gender bias in concrete and particular forms. As gender discrimination and poverty are interconnected, dealing with low-income households’ basic socioeconomic needs will also restructure gender power relations. With a large member-base and with ties to NGOs, corporations and governmental bodies, regionally, nationally and internationally, SEWA has become a powerful actor for social development, even at times when they face heavy resistance due to their feminist principles and commitment to the poor and socially marginalised.</p>