Magister Commercii - MCom / There have been many studies focussing on informal sector in South Africa in the last 25 years. This paper adds to the wealth of research that has been conducted in this field. It examines the linkages between the formal sector and informal sector, and how they interact with each other. The study uses probit models and fixed effects models to investigate how variables such as age, education and skill level affect employability and income in the labour market. This paper uses two data sets: wave 1 to wave 5 panel data of the 2008-2016 National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) to investigate the nature of the formal sector and the informal sector in South Africa. To study the linkages between the firms in the formal and informal sector, it uses the eThekwini Large and Medium Manufacturing Firm Survey dataset collected in 2013/2014.

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This research report examines the extent to which the economic and spatial practices of informal people can be classed as radical genda-setting towards an alternative city. In so doing the practices and perceptions of business owners, market traders and street traders in Yeoville are explored. To give greater context of what informal people are possibly pushing up against, state practice and policy are also considered. The discussion further draws on the nexus between politics and governance as well as between the state and capital on the making of contemporary cities. Social movement theory provides the initial basis to carry out the discussion. The interweaving theories of quiet encroachment (Bayat), insurgent citizenship (Holston) and subaltern urbanism (Roy) give the exploration greater depth.

This research project is a quantitative enquiry focused specifically on the value consumption of digital business platforms (DBP's) in relation to how informal sector traders (IST's) are using them to buy, sell and market their product and services in their daily trade functions. This study has adopted the approach of classifying the social media platforms, internet banking platforms and mobile payments platforms, as a single collective and defined under the banner of Digital Business Platforms. The advantage to this approach, is that it provides a multi-dimensional view of the perceived value-axis based on positive and negative experiences of using a variety of digital platforms including messaging, payments, and banking applications on their mobile phones in their daily trading functions. This study examines the positive experiences of perceived value (PV), collectively in the form of social value (SV), emotional value (EV) and functional value (FV). On the opposite end of the value spectrum, are the negative experiences of perceived risk in the form of price risk (PR) and technical barriers (TB) for the same group of informal sector traders. Understanding the relational impacts of these positive and negative experiences of value consumption, may lead to an understanding of their influence in the perceived usefulness (PU) and the perceived ease of use (PEoU) of DBP's. The results of these relationships will shed some light towards the behavioural intention (BI) to adopt DBP's and their actual usage in the long term. The analysis yielded the following results: for positive experiences, emotional value had the least impact on both perceived ease of use and usefulness and functional value was higher than social value. This means that IST's place more value on the utility of DBP's, than the emotional and social values. Regarding the negative experiences, price risk had the most significant impact on the willingness to adopt DBP's by ISTs.

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The genesis of the informal sector in Mozambique is similar to the way it emerged in many other countries in the world, starting mainly with small businesses performed by unemployed people, peasent families, street vendors among others as their self employment. The informal sector offers a striking illustration of the strengths and weakness of enterprises in Mozambique. A simple and transparent legal framework, properly enforced is indispensable for the long term success of the informal sector to turn to formal sector. Taxation is controversary in the informal sector. The existing tax system in Mozambique is distorced and naturally contribute to a host of economic and social problems. The needed for the reform of taxation system has been acknowledged for instance the recent implementation of VAT system in Mozambique still on process of implementation. Taxes generated by the informal sector could contribute to the budget of the State. / Mercantile Law / LL.M.

This study investigates the challenges faced by street traders in Mnquma Local Municipality. The purpose is to examine the factors affecting street traders trading at N2 Mthatha Street at Butterworth in Mnquma Local Municipality. For this reason, it was necessary to study the literature on local economic development. The challenges facing street traders were also investigated and analysed in order to formulate recommendations for solving challenges facing street trading in Mnquma Local Municipality. In order to fulfil the objective of the study and to address the research problem faceto-face interviews were conducted with the street traders, municipal officials and Hawkers’ Association. The literature review and the interviews enabled the recommendation of possible answers to the problem. These recommendations would be valuable and, one hopes, will also be of assistance to the Mnquma Local Municipality. Findings of this study indicate that challenges faced by street traders in Butterworth include lack of financial support to start their businesses. Also, the fact that there is no water taps that can be used by the members of the public in the Central Business District (CBD) in Butterworth as well as street lights at night is one of the challenges. Recommendations were made with regard to support and assistance for street traders, environmental management and also a recommendation on business registration and licensing. The study concludes that if the Mnquma local municipality can implement all the proposed recommendations, all the factors raised by street traders as disturbing the functionality of their businesses particularly in Butterworth will be rectified.

The informal sector has emerged as an important sector in Africa where many countries are striving to attain Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 8 on decent work and economic growth. The presence of a growing number of individuals and firms in the informal sector in Africa and the need to attain SDG 8 through formalisation have reignited the debate on informality and its possible causes and effects on the growth trajectory of African economies. Empirical questions on the determinants of informality are still not adequately answered. One question which continues to generate a lot of debate and contrasting results is the relationship between the informal sector and corruption. Both informality and corruption have emerged as ‘twin challenges’ in Africa, with a far reaching impact on economic development. The relationship between the informal sector and corruption has been an inconclusive and a polemical issue in both academic and developmental discourse. From a theoretical perspective, the two can be substitutes or complements, but the exact nature of the relationship is not clear. The main objective of this study is to empirically investigate the relationship between the informal sector, corruption and economic development in Africa, over the period 2005 to 2015. The objective of the study was answered through two ways: theoretical and empirical methodology. In the theoretical methodology, a classical approach was applied. The classical theory suggests that in the presence of a market for corruption, corruption control can reduce the size of the informal sector through reducing the supply of corruption, thereby raising the price of corruption. The negative relationship between corruption control and the size of the informal sector is supported by the described empirical data for Africa. The results from descriptive statistics, in particular the scatter plots, demonstrate that control of corruption, government effectiveness and economic development as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI) are negatively associated with the size of the informal sector. The negative association between the control of corruption and the size of the informal sector entails that corruption increases the size of the informal sector. With regards to the empirical solution, the total population of 54 African countries was considered for the study. However, a panel of 46 countries was analyzed as the other eight countries, although considered together with the rest, were scientifically isolated from the panel due to data challenges. Robustness checks were carried out to check if estimates are not sensitive to sample size or region. Further, for purposes of this study, the sample was also divided into Southern and Eastern Africa, and Northern and Western Africa. Panel data was applied in order to account for both time and country-specific heterogeneity. The use of panel data allows one to study variability through comparability of the level of informality in countries such as Zimbabwe where the economy has remained largely informalised. Four panel estimators, namely, the Pooled Effects, Fixed Effects or Within Effects, Random Effects or GLS, and Dynamic Panel Model (Arrelano-Bond), were applied. Model specification tests identified the Fixed Effect Model as the most appropriate model. Hence, the discussed results are largely from the Fixed Effects Model. On measurement of informality, the study relied on the shadow economy estimates constructed by Medina and Schneider (2018) for 158 countries from 1991 to 2015. On corruption, the study used the Control of Corruption Index (COCO) published by the World Bank, in the Governance Index Report. Unlike previous studies which used GDP per capita only as a proxy for economic development, this study went a step further and used Human Development Index (𝐻𝐷𝐼) as a proxy for economic development. Profit tax as a percentage of GDP was also tested as a potential determinant of informality. The endogeneity of the corruption variable was corrected using an instrumental variable. The findings show that an improvement in the control of corruption or government effectiveness reduces the level of informality in Africa while, an increasing informal sector is a breeding ground for corruption. The two variables are complements or jointly determined. Countries with large underground economies possess high levels of corruption, and countries with high levels of corruption are associated with large underground economies. The complementarity of corruption and the size of underground economy implies that policies that target one of the two will also help in tackling the other. In addition, the results show that economic development reduces the magnitude of informality, while a larger informal sector today implies a bigger informal sector in the future. One of the findings of this study is that previous studies which applied GDP per capita as a measure of economic development largely underestimated the impact of economic development on the size of the informal sector. The findings of the study show that the negative association between the control of corruption and the size of the informal sector holds for both the Northern and Southern regions of Africa. The impact is however bigger in the Northern Region, as a marginal improvement in corruption control has a bigger impact in reducing the size of the informal sector compared to the Southern Region. The results from the study also show that the level of informality in a country has a memory. A bigger informal sector today is likely to propel the level of the informal sector in the future. The findings show that a growth of the informal sector by one percentage point today will increase the informal sector by about 0.185 percentage points in the following year. The results from time dummies also indicate that the size of the informal sector in Africa started to grow significantly during the financial crisis period in 2009. The main implication of these findings is that African countries can target one of the two in order to reduce both the size of the underground economy and corruption. The other implication is that a policy that targets curing one of the problems will have positive external effects in curing the other unintended problem. Furthermore, the findings imply that African countries with large underground economies may continue to experience growing informal economies due to lack of regulatory capacity and weak enforcement. Solving the two problems is a double hurdle for African countries. / Economics / D. Com. (Economics)

The genesis of the informal sector in Mozambique is similar to the way it emerged in many other countries in the world, starting mainly with small businesses performed by unemployed people, peasent families, street vendors among others as their self employment. The informal sector offers a striking illustration of the strengths and weakness of enterprises in Mozambique. A simple and transparent legal framework, properly enforced is indispensable for the long term success of the informal sector to turn to formal sector. Taxation is controversary in the informal sector. The existing tax system in Mozambique is distorced and naturally contribute to a host of economic and social problems. The needed for the reform of taxation system has been acknowledged for instance the recent implementation of VAT system in Mozambique still on process of implementation. Taxes generated by the informal sector could contribute to the budget of the State. / Mercantile Law / LL.M.

Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Library and Information Science at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2012. / The use of tools for development has evolved from the industrial revolution in the late 18th and 19th centuries that saw the increased use of machines and developments in the mining industries, to the increased use of information and technology in the 20th century and major breakthroughs that sparked the evolution into the information and knowledge society of the 21st century. The basis of the information and knowledge society revolves around technology’s increased assimilation and diffusion in human society, particularly information and communication technologies and their rapid growth and use in the exchange of information and knowledge. This society offers many opportunities and benefits to people in terms of the facilitation of information creation, distribution, diffusion, access and use for growth and development in various spheres of life. Information and communication technologies are thus regarded as tools for the advancement and development of communities, and this includes rural, illiterate, marginalized and poor communities and the female entrepreneurs in the informal sector who are the subject of this thesis. The aim of this study was to examine information and knowledge society and its impact on poverty alleviation and the economic empowerment of informal sector women entrepreneurs in South Africa and develop a model for utilization of information and knowledge in the informal sector. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed for triangulation, although the qualitative approach significantly outweighed the quantitative in this study. The absence of a comprehensive list of informal activities in KwaZulu-Natal led to the decision to use snowball, purposive and haphazard sampling techniques to select the sample for the study. Focus group discussions, interviews, observation and content analysis were used to collect data from 118 women entrepreneurs from the informal sector, 17 women leaders, and 4 officials from the Hlabisa Local Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal.