A Review of Informal Employment Research

With the development of the economy and society, employment forms have shown a trend of diversification. Informal employment has become an important form of employment, and governments have introduced policies to protect the rights of informal workers. This paper reviews the literature on informal employment and summarizes the definition, role, and impact of informal employment, governance, rural informal employment, and women’s power in informal employment. The study concludes that the impact of informal employment is twofold. On the one hand, informal employment provides employment opportunities and contributes to economic growth. On the other hand, the wages, working environment, and institutional security of informal workers are inferior to those of formal workers. In addition, most studies have focused on urban spaces, and there are fewer studies on rural informal employment, especially for rural women. Due to gender, education level, and family care, informal employment has become the main employment form of the rural female labor force, and it is particularly important to study their employment status and rights protection.

The Environmental Impacts of Informal Economies in China: Inverted U-shaped Relationship and Regional Variances

This paper aims to the debate on the nexus between informal economies and the environment by investigating the long-term dynamic impacts of China’s informal economies on pollution and considering regional differences in informal economies’ pollution.This paper uses the Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes(MIMIC) model to estimate the size of informal economies and employs econometric models to examine their relationships to pollution based on provincial-level panel data from 2000 to 2017. The results indicate that informal economies’ effects on environmental pollution are not purely positive or negative. Rather, our model indicates that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between informal economies and pollution in the long run in China;this means that the level of environmental pollution increases at first and then decreases with the growth of informal economies. Further analysis shows that while this inverted, U-shaped relationship is significant in different regions of China, it is affected by different environmental impact factors. The paper concludes by discussing the policy implications for environmental protection and sustainable development.

Street Stall Economy in China in the COVID-19 Era:Dilemmas and the International Experience of Promoting the Normalization of Street Stall Economy

Compared with those major policies that need to be practiced over the years,the street stall economy is more like a special means after the epidemic,resulting in a“short and brilliant”heat.Nevertheless,the street stall economy revives is facing several dilemmas.This paper reveals the dilemma of the prosperity and development of the stall economy before and after the epidemic,followed by the international experience and enlightenment of promoting the normalization of street stall economy,ranging from street vendor’s legal status and road administrative promotion to street food safety and environmental protection.To sum up,employment is the foundation of people’s livelihood and the source of wealth,hence,stall economy plays an indispensable role to create a win-win working world and promote the formation of a sustainable economic.

An Exploration on the Theory of Information Economy

Since the 1970s, the application of information processing and information technology has gradually played a dominant role in Western economy, especially in American economy. Since the mid1980s, investment of the United States, Europe and Japan in information technology has increased drastically, making information

The driving effect of informal economies on urbanization in China

This paper examines the rise of informal economies in China,a hidden driving force overlooked in studies on China’s urbanization.Estimating the size of informal economies using the multiple indicators multiple causes model,the paper employs mathematical models to examine the driving effect of informal economies on urbanization and to reveal the paths by which such effect works.The results were as follows.(1)In 2018,the size of the informal economy in China accounted for 23.5%of GDP with an output value of 21.16 trillion yuan.(2)The informal economy had a driving effect on China’s urbanization,and every 1-percentagepoint increase in its share of the GDP led to an increase of 0.291 percentage points in the urbanization rate.(3)The informal economy’s effect on urbanization showed regional differences,decreasing in size from the eastern to the central to the western regions.(4)The informal economy drives urbanization through four paths-by promoting foreign direct investment(FDI),fixed asset investment(FAI),social consumption(SC),and secondary sector employment(SSE).Their effect sizes are ranked in descending order as follows:FDI>FAI>SC>SSE.This paper contributes to theories on urbanization dynamics and process in China by highlighting the role of the informal economy as a hidden economic power lurking in the city.