The Up and Downsides of Informal Economy: A Review

Abstract

Definitional problems and lack of understanding of the heterogeneity of informal economy has made many scholars working on such sector of economy to come out with one-size-fits-all solutions and results that do not sound well. As a result, in this paper an attempt of critically reviewing existing literatures was made so as to support upcoming future studies on the aforementioned economic sector so that the results of such study can address the problem on the ground. Consequently, this paper briefly addresses the different forms of informality lack of understanding of which might lead to ignorance of   heterogeneity of informal economy which in turn can potentially cause the results of studies on informal sector of insignificant values.  Furthermore, this paper attempted to counterbalance one-sided view (too optimistic) of informal economy by considering both the upsides and down sides of informal economy.