The Self-Selection of Workers to the Formal and Informal in Transition Economies: Evidence from Tajikistan
Finance a úvěr – Czech Journal of Economics and Finance, 2017, 67, (2), pp.140-164
This paper analyses the selection of workers to informal and formal sector employment in Tajikistan. It estimates a multinomial
selection bias correction model to assess the impact of observable and unobservable characteristics on the self-selection
of workers into the formal and informal sector and on sector specific wages using individual level data from the Tajikistan
Standards of Living Survey of 2007. The results suggest that selection of workers on both observable and unobservable characteristics
to these sectors is broadly consistent with self-selection on comparative advantages, that the self-selection of workers on
unobservable characteristics is the main reason for higher wages in the informal than the formal sector in Tajikistan and
that relative wages in the two sectors have a rather strong impact on the decision of workers to work in the formal or informal
sector.