No description available.

Abstract The central concern of this study is the nature of informal economic activities among urban traders in Harare, Zimbabwe. The study focuses on a particular flea market and describes the precarious lives of a sample of informal traders. It is shown that, as through much of Africa, the market is a social as well as an economic nexus. It is not only the site of economic production and exchange constituting the survivalist activities that are increasingly important in the collapsing Zimbabwe economy, but also the site of diverse social relations. The thesis also shows that the formal and informal are part of the same deeply segmented economy and not two distinct, separate economies. The extended case study method is used to describe and analyse the nature of informal trading activities among traders dealing in four types of goods commonly found at the flea market: clothes and shoes, DVDs and video games, arts and crafts, and second-hand books. Primary and secondary sources, interviews with policy experts, researchers and activists, a total of 70 semi-structured interviews with traders and participant observation, over a period of one and a half years were used to obtain data on the nature of the informal economy in the current Zimbabwe crisis, and to profile these traders. The thesis describes the daily lives of the traders, their social characteristics and work histories, and the social relations of trust and reciprocity which enable them to source their goods. It is shown that the majority of the traders live an extremely precarious existence marked by low, unstable incomes. However, they should not be viewed as passive victims of the economic crisis, as they demonstrate qualities of resourcefulness and innovation. Nor are they totally excluded from global circuits of production and exchange. Global connections are identified and shown to be relevant to the sourcing and sale of goods. These connections suggest an alternative way of conceptualising globalisation.

The dissertation “Informal Economic Activities” takes a comprehensive approach to the informal economy by studying traditional shadow economic activities, household DIY activities, and the smuggling of illegal and legal goods. Chapter 2 analyzes shadow economic and DIY activities and presents a dual estimation for the development of both types of informal economic activities in Germany from 1970 to 2005. It also considers the impact of German reunification on shadow economic and DIY activities and employs a proper estimate of domestic currency in circulation within Germany as an indicator variable for the shadow economy. Chapter 3 studies an informal economic activity that has attracted much attention recently: legal goods smuggling, or the illegal trade of otherwise legal goods. The main channel of this type of smuggling is the falsification of trade documents. By reporting false amounts of exports and/or imports to authorities smugglers, or trade misinvoicers, seek to avoid paying taxes and/or tariffs. Chapter 4 widens the analysis of smuggling to the smuggling of illegal goods and studies the smuggling of legal and illegal goods across the U.S.-Mexico border in order to improve the understanding of illegal trade. Studying the U.S.-Mexican case is particularly interesting as most illegal drugs and immigrants enter the United States via the Mexican border. The empirical analyses in the dissertation “Informal Economic Activities” are based on structural equation models (SEMs). The results demonstrate that the informal economy is significant and that growth of the informal economy is not exclusive to developing countries, although it is a more serious problem in these countries. Moreover, although the informal economy covers a wide range of rather diverse economic activities, the dissertation works out that a few similarities exist. These are important, especially for policymakers, in first understanding what drives informal economic activities and second designing appropriate policies to deter them.

The dissertation “Informal Economic Activities” takes a comprehensive approach to the informal economy by studying traditional shadow economic activities, household DIY activities, and the smuggling of illegal and legal goods. Chapter 2 analyzes shadow economic and DIY activities and presents a dual estimation for the development of both types of informal economic activities in Germany from 1970 to 2005. It also considers the impact of German reunification on shadow economic and DIY activities and employs a proper estimate of domestic currency in circulation within Germany as an indicator variable for the shadow economy. Chapter 3 studies an informal economic activity that has attracted much attention recently: legal goods smuggling, or the illegal trade of otherwise legal goods. The main channel of this type of smuggling is the falsification of trade documents. By reporting false amounts of exports and/or imports to authorities smugglers, or trade misinvoicers, seek to avoid paying taxes and/or tariffs. Chapter 4 widens the analysis of smuggling to the smuggling of illegal goods and studies the smuggling of legal and illegal goods across the U.S.-Mexico border in order to improve the understanding of illegal trade. Studying the U.S.-Mexican case is particularly interesting as most illegal drugs and immigrants enter the United States via the Mexican border. The empirical analyses in the dissertation “Informal Economic Activities” are based on structural equation models (SEMs). The results demonstrate that the informal economy is significant and that growth of the informal economy is not exclusive to developing countries, although it is a more serious problem in these countries. Moreover, although the informal economy covers a wide range of rather diverse economic activities, the dissertation works out that a few similarities exist. These are important, especially for policymakers, in first understanding what drives informal economic activities and second designing appropriate policies to deter them.