IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-02297694.html

Revisiting the Impact of Trade Openness on Informal and Irregular Employment in Egypt

Author

Listed:
  • Mélika Ben Salem

    (ERUDITE - Equipe de Recherche sur l’Utilisation des Données Individuelles en lien avec la Théorie Economique - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Chahir Zaki

    (Cairo University)

Abstract

This study examines the impact of trade openness on job quality, measured by the share of informal and irregular employment in total employment. By combining a microeconomic dataset (the Egyptian Labor Market Panel Survey) with macroeconomic variables (tariffs), we assess the effect of trade reforms on informal/irregular workers in Egypt. Our main findings show that there is a positive association between tariffs and both informal and irregular employments in Egypt. This effect is likely because the least productive informal firms will be forced to exit the industry and only the most productive (formal) firms will export to the international markets. This will increase the demand for formal (and eventually regular) workers that are usually more skilled and, in turn, lead to a likely decline in informal (and irregular) employment. While this effect on informality is robust, the one on irregularity is not.

Suggested Citation

  • Mélika Ben Salem & Chahir Zaki, 2019. "Revisiting the Impact of Trade Openness on Informal and Irregular Employment in Egypt," Post-Print halshs-02297694, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02297694
    DOI: 10.11130/jei.2019.34.3.465
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hayakawa, Kazunobu & Keola, Souknilanh & Sudsawasd, Sasatra & Yamanouchi, Kenta, 2025. "International bridges and informal employment," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 667-682.
    2. Giorgia Giovannetti & Enrico Marvasi & Arianna Vivoli, 2020. "The asymmetric effects of twenty years of tariff reforms on Egyptian workers," Working Papers LuissLab 20156, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, LUISS Guido Carli.
    3. Giorgia Giovannetti & Enrico Marvasi & Arianna Vivoli, 2021. "The asymmetric effects of 20 years of tariff reforms on Egyptian workers," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(1), pages 89-130, April.
    4. Tillan,Pablo Antonio & Kokas,Deeksha & Bezerra De Goes,Carlos Andre & Lopez-Acevedo,Gladys C., 2023. "Reassessing the Impacts of Exports on Local Labor Market Outcomes : A Supply Chain Perspective — Evidence from the Arab Republic of Egypt," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10614, The World Bank.
    5. Kazi Mohammed Kamal Uddin & Munem Ahmad Chowdhury, 2020. "Impact of FDI on Employment Level in Bangladesh: A VECM Approach," International Journal of Applied Economics, Finance and Accounting, Online Academic Press, vol. 8(1), pages 30-37.
    6. Rihab Bellakhal & Hend Ghazzai & Rim Lahmandi‐Ayed, 2024. "Globalisation and informality: The role of quality gap and social contributions," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(7), pages 3120-3149, July.
    7. HAYAKAWA,Kazunobu & KEOLA, Souknilanh & SUDSAWASD, Sasatra & YAMANOUCHI, Kenta, 2024. "International Bridges and Informality," IDE Discussion Papers 914, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F20 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02297694. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.