Publisher's Synopsis
This is a selection of articles on the informal economy. They describe and analyze the activities of people who exist within, but work outside of, the formal employment and redistributive structures of advanced Western capitalist economies. These activities include: domestic and household production, do-it-yourself production, maintenance, and other kinds of self-provisioning; bartering and social exchange of goods and services between networks of friends and neighbors; off-the-books work; and deviant work in which persons participate in illegal exchanges of goods and services. The book brings together major classic statements, contemporary research, and statistical and theoretical analysis, drawing on materials from a diversity of social science disciplines. Includes published works of sociologists, economists, anthropologists, politicians, tax analysts, journalists, criminologists, and geographers.
