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The Effect of Informal Employment and Corruption on Income Levels in Brazil

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  • Jamie Bologna

    (West Virginia University, College of Business and Economics)

Abstract

This paper exploits a unique dataset on corruption and informal sector employment in 476 Brazilian municipalities to estimate whether corruption impacts GDP or income levels once variation in informal economic activity is taken into account. Overall, I find that higher levels of corruption and a larger informal economy are generally associated with poor economic outcomes. However, only the size of the informal economy has a statistically significant effect. This effect is robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls and fixed effects, as well as an instrumental variable analysis. Further, these effects are large in magnitude. For example, a one standard deviation increase in the share of total employees that are informally employed explains a decrease in GDP per-capita of about 18 percent.

Suggested Citation

  • Jamie Bologna, 2014. "The Effect of Informal Employment and Corruption on Income Levels in Brazil," Working Papers 14-26, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    • Handle: RePEc:wvu:wpaper:14-26
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    File URL: http://busecon.wvu.edu/phd_economics/pdf/14-26.pdf
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Joshua Hall & John Levendis & Alexandre R. Scarcioffolo, 2020. "The Efficient Corruption Hypothesis and the Dynamics Between Economic Freedom, Corruption, and National Income," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 54(3), pages 161-175, July-Sept.
    2. Jamie Bologna & Amanda Ross, 2015. "Corruption and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from a Random Audit Program," Working Papers 15-05, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    3. Jamie Bologna, 2017. "Contagious corruption, informal employment, and income: evidence from Brazilian municipalities," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 58(1), pages 67-118, January.
    4. Serdar Acun, 2021. "Türkiye’de Ücretlilerin Kayıtlı Çalışma Olasılığını Belirleyen Faktörlerin Analizi," Journal of Social Policy Conferences, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 0(80), pages 423-450, June.
    5. Jamie Bologna & Amanda Ross, 2015. "Corruption and entrepreneurship: evidence from Brazilian municipalities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 59-77, October.
    6. Pavlik, Jamie Bologna & Williams, Ryan Blake, 2018. "Is the Devil in the Shadow? A Reexamination of the Relationship between Institutions and Income," 2018 Annual Meeting, February 2-6, 2018, Jacksonville, Florida 266675, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    7. Cordelia Onyinyechi Omodero, 2020. "Taxation Income, Graft and Informal Sector Operations in Nigeria in Relation to Other African Countries," International Journal of Financial Research, International Journal of Financial Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 11(2), pages 163-172, April.
    8. Omodero Cordelia Onyinyechi, 2019. "The Consequences of Shadow Economy and Corruption on Tax Revenue Performance in Nigeria," Studia Universitatis „Vasile Goldis” Arad – Economics Series, Sciendo, vol. 29(3), pages 64-79, September.
    9. Jetter, Michael & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2018. "Sorting through global corruption determinants: Institutions and education matter – Not culture," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 279-294.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    corruption; informal economy; income levels; growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth

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