Should informal sector be subsidised?

This paper explains the impact of output subsidy to the informal sector on urban unemployment and domestic factor income in a mobile capital model where urban formal wage is endogenous and the informal sector has global exposure.Informal sector; Subsidy

Skill acquisition and economic development — some comments

Deme, Franck and Naqvi(2005) showed that the increased government expenditure on education, training and skill acquisition leads to lower unemployment rate, expansion of the urban formal sector and the contraction of the urban informal sector. This was observed to be the case in Lesotho. The result is based on the two vital assumptions: public expenditure on education ,training and skill acquisition should be very large; and the skill acquisition function is a rising step function. We present a general equilibrium model with perfect capital mobility to analyse the impact of government expenditure on skill acquisition on urban unemployment, the urban formal sector and the urban informal sector.We find that it is possible to derive the Deme, Frank and Naqvi(2005) result independent of the level of government expenditure and the nature of the skill function.skill acquisition; economic development

Foreign enclaves, informal sector and urban unemployment: A theoretical analysis

ABSTRACT :- We consider a small open Harris-Todaro economy with a rural foreign enclave and urban informal sector. We introduce consumption-efficiency relation to explain the simultaneous existence of informal sector and urban unemployment. Different types of immobility and mobility of capital are assumed in different sections of this paper. We also analyse the effects of expansion of foreign enclave on urban unemployment and on domestic factor income. In many cases, we get the results opposite to that obtained in the young-Miyagiwa model.FOREIGN ENCLAVES; INFORMAL SECTOR ; URBAN UNEMPLOYMENT

Trade Reform, Capital Mobility, and Efficiency Wage in a Harris-Todaro Economy

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of trade reform on unemployment and social welfare in a Harris-Todaro (1970) economy with efficiency wage and capital mobility. The analysis shows that capital mobility plays an important role to influence the impact of trade reform on unemployment and social welfare. We find that trade reform raises urban unemployment and produces an ambiguous effect on social welfare when capital is perfectly mobile among the three sectors. However, such policy lowers unemployment and raises social welfare when capital is imperfectly mobile.Trade Reform, Capital Mobility, Efficiency Wage

Job-search and FDI in a two-sector general equilibrium model

The purpose of this paper is to extend the Fields’ (1989) multi sector job-search model by introducing international trade and capital. Two types of capital are considered: fixed capital and mobile capital. The effects of search intensity and the inflow of foreign capital on the volume and the rate of urban unemployment and on the social welfare are also examined in both of the two cases. The main finding is: more efficient on-the-job search from the rural sector raises unemployment rate when capital is mobile between the two sectors. This is counterproductive to the standard result

Job-search and FDI in a two-sector general equilibrium model

The purpose of this paper is to extend the Fields’ (1989) multi sector job-search model by introducing international trade and capital. Two types of capital are considered: fixed capital and mobile capital. The effects of search intensity and the inflow of foreign capital on the volume and the rate of urban unemployment and on the social welfare are also examined in both of the two cases. The main finding is: more efficient on-the-job search from the rural sector raises unemployment rate when capital is mobile between the two sectors. This is counterproductive to the standard result.Job search, foreign capital, unemployment rate, ex-post labour, ex-ante labour, general equilibrium

Trade Reform, Capital Mobility, and Efficiency Wage in a Harris-Todaro Economy

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of trade reform on unemployment and social welfare in a Harris-Todaro (1970) economy with efficiency wage and capital mobility. The analysis shows that capital mobility plays an important role to influence the impact of trade reform on unemployment and social welfare. We find that trade reform raises urban unemployment and produces an ambiguous effect on social welfare when capital is perfectly mobile among the three sectors. However, such policy lowers unemployment and raises social welfare when capital is imperfectly mobile

Economic Reforms, Frictional Unemployment and Wage Inequality-----A General Equilibrium Analysis

In this paper we extend the benchmark model of Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides in a two-sector general equilibrium framework by introducing a frictionless segment of the labour market. The two sectors are the frictionless informal sector and the frictional formal sector where match friction is the root cause of unemployment. Here,both wages are flexible. Informal wage is determined by the marginal productivity rule of the worker and the formal wage is determined by the Nash-bargaining solution. We alsoexamine the effects of trade reforms and labour market reforms on equilibrium rate of unemployment and wage inequality in our stylitzed economy. We find that both these reforms reduce equilibrium rate of unemployment. However, trade reforms raise wage inequality but labour market reforms reduce it. These results provide a strong theoretical basis for labour market reform in a small open economy characterized by frictional labour market

Labour Policies In The DMP Model—A Theoretical Analysis

In this paper we examine different types of labour policies in the benchmark model of DMP in both cases where job-destruction rate is exogenous and endogenous. Our theoretical results show that the labour market tightness and the unemployment rate would be more volatile if job-destruction is endogenous

Should informal sector be subsidised?

This paper explains the impact of output subsidy to the informal sector on urban unemployment and domestic factor income in a mobile capital model where urban formal wage is endogenous and the informal sector has global exposure