Do labour market policies reduce the informal economy more effectively than enforcement and deterrence?

SARAÇOĞLU D. Ş.

JOURNAL OF POLICY MODELING, cilt.42, sa.3, ss.679-698, 2020 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 42 Sayı: 3
  • Basım Tarihi: 2020
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.jpolmod.2020.01.010
  • Dergi Adı: JOURNAL OF POLICY MODELING
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, ABI/INFORM, Business Source Elite, Business Source Premier, EconLit, Political Science Complete, Public Affairs Index, Sociological abstracts
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.679-698
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: Segmented labour markets, Informal employment, Payroll taxes, Minimum wage, Dynamic modeling, MINIMUM-WAGE, SECTOR, IMPACT, EMPLOYMENT, TAXATION, PAYROLL, GROWTH, TAX
  • Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

In 2006, Turkish policymakers introduced new measures to reduce informality and encourage formality, in which the primary means of combatting informality were stricter enforcement of existing labor market laws and deterrence through fines, without any appropriate adjustments in formal labour costs. In this paper we show that even without any change in enforcement and deterrence, in an economy growing with capital accumulation like in Turkey, informality gradually and naturally declines. Furthermore, we propose alternative labour market policy changes like reductions in minimum wage and payroll taxes to reduce informal employment share, and assess the relative effectiveness of these policy changes. (C) 2020 The Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.