How does the informal economy affect SDGs in developing countries
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19499573 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Quentin Nouhessèwa Hounyonou (0009-0000-6370-760X, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 589-617 |
| Publication date | 2025-07-04 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1350-4509 • E-ISSN: 1745-2627 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13504509.2025.2515963 |
| OpenAlex | W4411241070 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 60 |
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to provide everyone with a socially, economically, and ecologically acceptable life. Implemented by the United Nations in early 2016, this program encompasses and empowers both developing and developed countries. Unfortunately, developing countries are still a long way from completing this program. Knowing that these countries have the particularity of having a large informal economy, we investigated how the latter affects the achievement of the SDGs using a sample of 153 countries observed between 2000 and 2018. Our main identification strategy combines the methods of fixed-effects and two-stage least squares. The results show that the informal economy constitutes an obstacle to the completion of the SDGs. But, except for African countries, this adverse effect can be alleviated through the development of the financial sector and huge government investments in the education sector. In addition, expanding the informal economy in rural areas could be recommended to offer various employment opportunities outside of agriculture. Therefore, to align the dynamic of the informal sector with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), developing countries should prioritize the education and financial sectors in their strategic planning and promote entrepreneurship in rural areas
Business · Developing country · Economic growth · Economic system · Economics · Informal sector · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion · Psychology · Taxation and Compliance Studies
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| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |