Informal Economies

(noun)

Employment domains that are not regulated by governments and law enforcement.

Related Terms

Examples of Informal Economies in the following topics:

  • Informal Economy

    • This is in contrast to the formal economy; a formal economy includes economic activity that is legal according to national law.
    • Informal economies are frequently less institutionalized and include all economic practices that are not included in the calculation of GNP.
    • Informal economies therefore include such disparate practices as the drug trade and babysitting—anything that isn't reported to the government or factored into the nation's GNP .
    • All economies have informal elements.
    • Analyze the impact of the informal economy on formal economy, such as the black market or working "under the table"

  • Informal economy

    • An informal economy is economic activity that is neither taxed nor monitored by a government and is contrasted with the formal economy as described above.
    • The informal economy is thus not included in a government's Gross National Product or GNP.
    • Although the informal economy is often associated with developing countries, all economic systems contain an informal economy in some proportion.
    • Informal economic activity is a dynamic process which includes many aspects of economic and social theory including exchange, regulation, and enforcement.
    • The term black market refers to a specific subset of the informal economy.

  • The Economy

    • France is an example of a largely socialist economy.
    • Economies can be divided into formal economies and informal economies.
    • Informal economies are frequently less institutionalized and include all economic practices that are neither taxed nor monitored by a government.
    • Economies are fundamentally social systems.
    • Informal economic activity is a dynamic process which includes many aspects of economic and social theory: exchange, regulation, and enforcement.

  • Informal Means of Control

    • Informal social control refers to the reactions of individuals and groups that bring about conformity to norms and laws.
    • Informal controls are varied and differ from individual to individual, group to group, and society to society.
    • Informal social control—the reactions of individuals and groups that bring about conformity to norms and laws—includes peer and community pressure, bystander intervention in a crime, and collective responses such as citizen patrol groups.
    • Informal sanctions may include shame, ridicule, sarcasm, criticism, and disapproval.
    • Informal controls differ from individual to individual, group to group, and society to society.

  • Informal Social Control

    • Informal control typically involves an individual internalizing certain norms and values.
    • Informal sanctions may include shame, ridicule, sarcasm, criticism, and disapproval, which can cause an individual to conform to the social norms of the society.
    • Informal social control has the potential to have a greater impact on an individual than formal control.
    • Informal sanctions check 'deviant' behavior.

  • Social Control

    • Informal sanctions can have a powerful effect; individuals internalize the norm, which becomes an aspect of personality.
    • Thus, the social control lessons learned in school may prepare students, for example, to be a docile proletariat in a capitalist economy.

  • Sanctions

    • Informal sanctions may include shame, ridicule, sarcasm, criticism, and disapproval.
    • Informal sanctions can check deviant behavior of individuals or groups, either through internalization, or through disincentivizing the deviant behavior.
    • Informal controls are varied and differ from individual to individual, group to group, and society to society.

  • Informal Structure

  • Formal Structure

    • Informal organization can accelerate and enhance responses to unanticipated events, foster innovation, enable people to solve problems that require collaboration across boundaries, and create paths where the formal organization may someday need to pave a way.

  • Bibliography

    • Corporate profits and cooptation: networks of market constraints and directorate ties in the American economy.
    • Form and substance in the analysis of the world economy, pp. 304-326 in Wellman and Berkowitz (eds.)
    • Structure and dynamics of the global economy: Network analysis of international trade 1965-1980, University of Caliornia, Irvine, mimeo.
    • Dual Exchange Theory, Social Networks, and Informal Social Support.