This article considers the current state of knowledge about informal economies. Criticism of the value of the informal economy concept is addressed by considering the multiple disciplinary interests in the topic, the confusion over an appropriate definition, and the problems of classification and explanation. A multidisciplinary, macro-micro approach is suggested. The joint ethnography-sruvey method has been found to be the most productive research tool for empirical study, and the principles of such methodology are outlined. In the context of a discussion on the politics of research funding, major areas for future research are identified. These include historical surveys; local-area studies; changing household work patterns in relation to the wider formal economy; informal work and illegal markets; class, ethnic, and sexual composition of the participants; informal institutions, particularly information and skill exchanges; media and their representation of the informal economy; and the role of informal economies in coping with national disasters. Finally, the implications of the informal economies for government policy on taxation, labor, welfare, and crime and criminal justice are drawn out.
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References
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see, for example, Joseph Huber, “Conceptions of the Dual Economy,”Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 27:63-73 (1985).
2.
2. Not all economists take this view. Dual labor market theorists, for example, show that social and economic heterogeneity can coexist where labor segmentation occurs between primary jobs that are skilled and highly rewarded and semiskilled and unskilled jobs. See David M. Gordon, Richard E. Edwards, and Michael Reich, Segmented Work, Divided Workers (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
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3. John Davis, “Rules Not Laws: Outline of an Ethnographic Approach to Economics,” in New Approaches to Economic Life, ed. Roberts, Finnegan, and Gallie, p. 503.
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John A. Denton , “The Underground Economy and Social Stratification,”Sociological Spectrum, 5:31-42 (1985).
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5. But for a joint work from an economist, a sociologist, and an anthropologist, see Robin Cantor, Stuart Henry, and Steve Rayner, Markets, Distribution and Exchange after Societal Cataclysm (Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1987).
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6. Roberts, Finnegan, and Gallie, ed., New Approaches to Economic Life, p. 14. Roberts, Finnegan, and Gallie ironically rely on a multidisciplinary approach bringing together sociologists, anthropologists, social psychologists, and economists.
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7. J. I. Gershuny, “The Self-Service Economy,”New Universities Quarterly, pp. 50-66 (Winter 1977).
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8. Pahl, Divisions of Labour.
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9. Barry Knight and Ruth Hayes, The Self Help Economy: Social and Economic Development in the Inner City (London: London Voluntary Service Council, 1982).
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10. A number of the issues raised in this section have emerged from exchanges with Alison Lever, to whom the authors are grateful.
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Huber , “Conceptions of the Dual Economy.”
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12. Pahl, Divisions of Labour.
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13. Alan Swingewood, Marx and Modern Social Theory (London: Macmillan Press, 1975), p. 57.
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14. Ibid., pp. 44-45.
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15. For a theoretical perspective that takes account of the agency-structure relationship and that sees all human activities as recursive, meaning that they are continually recreated by social actors via the very means whereby they express themselves as actors, see Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society (Oxford: Polity Press, 1984).
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17. See Louis A. Ferman, Louise E. Berndt, and Elaine Selo, An Analysis of the Irregular Economy: Cash Flow in the Informal Sector (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan; Detroit: Wayne State University, 1978).
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Louis A. Ferman and Louise E. Berndt, “The Irregular Economy,” in Informal Institutions, ed. Henry.
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19. See Pahl, Divisions of Labour.
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idem , “A Consumer Expenditure Approach to Estimating the Size of the Underground Economy,”Journal of Marketing, 50:48-60 (1986).
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21. In considering innovative methodologies for studying informal economies, mention must be made of the work of Gerald Mars and Yochanan Altman. While not using survey techniques, Mars and Altman studied the second economy in Soviet Georgia by employing ethnography, structured interviews, and life histories of a community of 5000 recently arrived immigrants from Soviet Georgia to Israel. The “retrospective reconstruction” enabled them to obtain a rich data base on an otherwise nonresearchable area. See Gerald Mars and Yochanan Altman, “The Cultural Bases of Soviet Georgia's Second Economy,”Soviet Studies, 35:546-560 (1983).
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22. Duncan Gallie, “Directions for the Future,” in New Approaches to Economic Life, ed. Roberts, Finnegan, and Gallie, p. 522.
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24. See esp. Carl P. Simon and Ann D. Witte, Beating the System: The Underground Economy (Boston: Auburn House, 1982).
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See also J. I. Gershuny and R. E. Pahl, “Work Outside Employment: Some Preliminary Speculations,” in Informal Institutions, ed. Henry.
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27. For an approach that is critical of this perspective, see Roy Carr-Hill, “Whither (Research on) Unemployment?” in New Approaches to Economic Life, ed. Roberts, Finnegan, and Gallie.
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Roberts , Finnegan, and Gallie, eds., New Approaches to Economic Life, sec. 6, which discusses household roles in a changing economy.
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Marilyn Walsh , The Fence (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977).
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Philip Mattera , Off the Books: The Rise of the Underground Economy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985).
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31. John Auld, Nicholas Dorn, and Nigel South, “Irregular Work, Irregular Pleasures: Heroin in the 1980's,” in Confronting Crime, ed. Roger Matthews and Jock Young (London: Sage, 1986).
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Roger Waldinger, “Immigrant Enterprise and the Structure of the Labour Market,” in ibid.
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35. Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (London: Calder Boyars, 1971), p. 79.
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Colin Ward , “Community Education,” in Informal Institutions, ed. Henry.
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Peter Golding and Sue Middleton, “Why Is the Press So Obsessed with Welfare Scroungers?”New Society, 46:195-197 (1978).
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Martin Killias , “Switzerland,” in International Handbook of Contemporary Developments in Criminology: Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, ed. Elmer H. Johnson (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983).
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41. Pahl, Divisions of Labour.
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42. Gerald Mars, Cheats at Work: An Anthropology of Workplace Crime (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982), p. 184.
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43. Jeremy Alden, “Holding Two Jobs: An Examination of `Moonlighting,' ” in Informal Institutions, ed. Henry.
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Rolf G. Heinze and Thomas Olk, “Development of the Informal Economy: A Strategy for Resolving the Crisis of the Welfare State,”Futures, pp. 189-204 (June 1982).
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Bureau of Justice Statistics , Report to the Nation on Crime and Justice: The Data (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, 1983).
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Stuart Henry , “On the Fence,”British Journal of Law and Society, 4:124-133 (1977).
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on inhibiting buyers, see Joseph F. Sheley and Kenneth D. Bailey, “New Directions for Anti-Theft Policy: Reductions in Stolen Goods Buyers,”Journal of Criminal Justice, 13:399-415 (1985).
51.
51. Auld, Dorn, and South, “Irregular Work, Irregular Pleasures.”
52.
52. Ibid., p. 173
53.
Mars , Cheats at Work.
54.
idem , Private Justice (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983).
55.
55. Cyril Robinson, “Criminal Justice Research: Two Competing Futures,”Crime and Social Justice, no. 23, p. 122 (1985).
56.
For a seminal application of integrated theorizing to the relations between formal and informal institutions, see Peter Fitzpatrick, “Law and Societies,”Osgood Hall Law Journal, 22: 115-138 (1984).
