Revisiting the Informal Sector: A General Equilibrium Approach - Softcover

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Sarbajit Chaudhuri is a professor with the Department of Economics, Calcutta University, Kolkata, India. He received his PhD in 1995 from the Jadavpur University, Kolkata working under the supervision of Professor Manash Ranjan Gupta. Ranked among the top 3% authors of India and the top 6% authors of Asia as per RePEc/IDEAS ranking (as of January 2014), he has published more than 65 research papers in journals of international repute, such as, Journal of Development Economics, Economica, International Review of Economics and Finance, Review of International Economics, Review of Development Economics, Economic Modelling, Research in Economics, Japan and the World Economy, Pacific Economic Review, The Japanese Economic Review, The Manchester School, Bulletin of Economic Research, Journal of International Trade and Economic Development, Review of Urban and Regional Development Studies, The Economics of Transition, among others. He has also authored books titled Revisiting the Informal Sector: A General Equilibrium Approach (Springer, New York) and Some Aspects of Agricultural Credit in a Developing Economy (Serials Publications, New Delhi). Prof. Chaudhuri has served on the Editorial Boards of many journals. For his work, he was made an honorary member of the Canadian Economic Association, in 2006. His areas of interest include development economics, international economics, environmental economics, health economics, labour economics, agricultural economics and micro-economics. Ujjaini Mukhopadhyay is an assistant professor with the Department of Economics at Behala College, Kolkata, India. She obtained her PhD from Calcutta University, India in 2005, working under the supervision of Professor Sarbajit Chaudhuri. Her papers have been published in reputed journals such as Journal of International Trade and Economic Development, Energy Policy, The Environmentalist, Review of Urban and Regional Development Studies, to name a few. She has also co-authored a book titled Revisiting the Informal Sector: A General Equilibrium Approach (Springer, New York). Her current research interests include development economics, labour economics, and environment management.

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The last 50 years have seen unprecedented population growth and urbanization, particularly in developing countries. However, economic development in these countries has failed to generate adequate employment and income opportunities in the modern sector. This imbalance has compelled the surplus labor force to generate its own means of employment and survival in the informal sector. The informal sector is economic activity that is neither taxed nor monitored by a government. Its main characteristics are: easy entry for new enterprises, reliance on indigenous resources, family ownership of enterprises, small scale operations and low productivity, labor-intensive and adapted technology, reliance of workers on informal sources of education and skills, unregulated and competitive markets and lack of governmental support.

This timely, comprehensive book provides insight into the diverse aspects of the informal sector, its role in the context of unemployment, child labor, globalization and environment, as well as its multi-faceted interaction with the other sectors of the economy. It outlines previous doctrines that portray the informal sector as a sector of last resort, and elucidates newer approaches that see the informal sector as dynamic and instrumental in ameliorating unemployment and propelling the developing economies towards growth and prosperity. Finally, the book critically reviews the contradictions within both to trace the nature and direction of desirable policy parameters. It is an invaluable reference for academics and students in development and international economics. The book’s findings will also be useful to policymakers for application to development projects.